LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





0002037^235 



SL Ha,&jxaJL \j I 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS, 



BY 



MADAME J. M. B. DE LA MOTHE GUYON. 



TRANSLATED BY A. E. FORD. 



55©tt{i ^Parallel passages 



FEOM 



THE WRITINGS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY OTIS CLAPP, 

HOOL g 

1853. 



H 



y!^" 



a 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

OTIS CLAPP, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 

ITo. 22, School Street. 



\ 



PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 



The writings of Madame Guyon can be best appreciated by those 
rYiio have accepted the heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem. 
H she were really one of the few, who, in the first Christian Church, 
.eached the celestial state, it cannot but be, that the voluminous 
productions of her pen should throw light upon a path which is essen- 
tially the Same under an imperfect as under a perfect form of Chris- 
ianity. 

If any of the New Church profession are disposed to look in what 
they read chiefly for truth ofjlQctrine f they will take offence at this 
little treatise, and perhaps at the very idea of putting it forth in the 
interests of the New Church. But they who put doctrine below life, 
who believe that the first Christian Church has produced, in many 
cases, a higher love and charity than the New Church has yet realized, 
and who, in perusing the records of past excellence, can pass over the 
many errors which spring from a false doctrinal system, and feel 
themselves addressed, elevated, and strengthened by the living spirit 
which reigns in them, will probably draw something from this little 
work, which they cannot, in the same degree, find in any of the prac- 
tical writings as yet extant in the New Church, save those of Sweden- 
borg himself. The mistakes to be found in Madame Guyon are not, 
indeed, very likely to mislead; for who, at this day, not educated in 
such views, would think of looking to penances and bodily austerities 
as means of grace, or find it reasonable and scriptural to worship the 
Virgin and the Saints 1 The truths of life, on the other hand, taught 
by her and illustrated by her experience, are eternal, and cannot fail to 
address every prepared mind with a living energy. 



iv translator's preface, 



Even "with regard to her doctrinal errors, it may be said with truth, 
that they are by no means in her what they are in others. She uses, 
for example, the common language of those who divide the Godhead 
into Three Persons ; yet it is plain that she had deep views, peculiar 
to herself, respecting the Divine Unity. Though she would have stated 
her creed concerning the Person of Christ in the words of the Roman 
Communion, nothing is more certain than that she had a living recog- 
nition of the Omnipotence of the Lord as the centre of all spiritual life, 
and that she referred every thing she had or expected to Him. She be- 
lieved in Purgatory; yet read her little treatise on it, and you will find 
that the idea she entertained of it approximates closely to the vasta- 
tions which the writings of the New Church describe in the world of 
spirits. That her invocation of the Virgin and the Saints — an example 
of which we have in the Preface to the Torrents — was interiorly a dif- 
ferent thing from the superstitious practice generally known under that 
term, may appear from the following extract from her life : " I could 
no longer see the Saints nor the holy Virgin out of God; but I used 
to see them all in Him, without being able, except with great difficulty, 
to distinguish them from Him; and although I tenderly loved certain 
saints, as St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Magdalene, St. Theresa, all indeed 
who excelled in the life of the interior, I yet could not conceive of 
them distinctly, or invoke them out of God; " as well as from a passage 
in her Justifications, in which she resolves the invocation of saints into 
" union or communion " with them. 

But some things commonly alleged against Madame Guyon as 
errors are, in the opinion of the translator, most important truths, 
fully sustained by the doctrines of the New Church. The charge of 
u mysticism," so commonly preferred against her writings, — by 
which term, when used in the way of reproach, something which 
soars above common apprehension into the unintelligible is under- 
stood, — comes from those who know much of religion by science, and 
nothing or very little by perception. " Whatever the spiritual man 
then speaks," says Swedenborg, " merely natural men say that they 
do not perceive, and likewise that it is not so; and if only mention 
be made of what is internal or spiritual, they either ridicule it or call 
it mystical." — A. C. 5022. Her quietism, or passivity, is almost of 
necessity, by such minds, construed into a letting of the hands hang 
down, and a waiting for influx. But that she did not so understand 
her own language is manifest from many passages of her writings, 



translator's preface. 



of which the following, from the twenty-first chapter of her " Short 
Method of Prayer," is one : " Some persons, when they hear the 
prayer of silence spoken of, suppose falsely that the soul in this state 
remains stupid, dead, and inactive. But it is certain that it acts here 
more nobly and more wisely than ever before, since it is moved of 
God Himself, and acts by his Spirit. St. Paul demands that we 
should suffer ourselves to 'be moved [led] by the Spirit of God.' 
Rom. viii. 14. I do not say that we must not act, but that we must 
act in dependence on the movements of grace. This action of the 
soul is an action full of repose. When it acts of itself, it acts with 
effort, and, for that reason, is more sensible of its own action; but, 
when it acts in dependence on the spirit of grace, its action is so 
free, so easy, so natural, that it appears not to act. There is, there- 
fore, action; but action so noble, so peaceable, so tranquil, that the 
soul appears not to act, because it acts as it were naturally." 

Her language in reference to annihilation has also been misunder- 
stood to signify the eradication of all desire and affection. But a 
candid examination will find her views, considered as popular state- 
ments, in remarkable accordance with the teachings of the New 
Church ; for, while she holds, in effect, that " all the concupiscences 
of the natural are to be extirpated" (A. C. 5647), she says nothing 
inconsistent with the idea that we are " not to reject the natural, but 
to accommodate it, that it may be in agreement [with the internal], 
thus to subordinate it." — A. C. 5247. Annihilation with her is only a 
recognition of the New Church truth, that man, in himself considered, 
or such as he is previous to regeneration, is a " nothing " [see D. P. 
19], and that there is to be an entire abstinence from all that this 
" nothing " would suggest, either to the will or the understanding. 
Thus she understands by it only that entire separation from the 
proprium which the doctrines of the New Church teach to be the 
main end of the Christian religion. 

So with regard to the "divine life." Some of her figures and 
expressions might lead one to suppose that she viewed it as a kind of 
absorption into Deity, like that contended for by Pantheism; but her 
more definite statements show that she recognizes that distinction 
between the creature and the Creator which Swedenborg has stated 
with precision, when he tells us, that man in his highest state has a 
proprium still, though a celestial one, from which he continues to act 
as of himself. Madame Guyon even states, in other terms, what 



vi translator's preface. 

Swedenborg has declared, — "That a man, in proportion as he is 
more nearly conjoined to the Lord, appears to himself to be more 
distinctly at his own disposal, and perceives more evidently that he is 
the Lord's." — D. P. 42. Sufficient proof of this may be found in 
the Second Part of the following treatise. 

But, although it is the strong conviction of the translator, that 
those points in Madame. Ghiyon which have been most excepted to, 
and have most provoked controversy, are most in agreement with the 
doctrine of life of the New Church, still he does not design to recom- 
mend this or any of her works, in any other point of view than as 
containing popular statements of what, in the writings of the New 
Church, is stated more truly, more widely, and with scientific preci- 
sion. They are a presentation in the concrete of what is given by 
Swedenborg in the abstract form ; and so will be useful in explaining, 
confirming, and, through the medium of the affections, enforcing, his 
higher and truer developments of a Divine Truth. 

It is hoped that this little work may serve to commend the New 
Church to the notice and examination of those as yet little acquainted 
with it. There is a certain class in the religious community who have 
learned to appreciate her writings, chiefly through the excellent life of 
her prepared by Professor Upham. It may be matter of surprise to 
such to find, from this little work, the coincidence between her and 
the teachings of the New Church, on the deepest subjects of the 
interior life. And, when they learn that Swedenborg developed the 
profound wisdom so conspicuous in his theological works from the 
Word, they will surely be induced to examine whether what he so 
solemnly affirms may not be true, viz. that the Divine Word foretells 
a New Church to be established after that founded by the Lord through 
the apostles should have come to an end; that that Church commenced 
in the middle of the last century; and that its doctrines, which him- 
self was the divinely-prepared medium for making known to the 
world, present Christianity in its final and perfect form. Te who seek 
truth ! examine whether it be not developed, in a manner to satisfy at 
once the demands of your rational faculty and your religious affections, 
from its only genuine fountain, — the Word of God — in the writings 
of Swedenborg ; and, if you discover it there, let no human regards 
keep you from acknowledging the fact openly to the world, that others 
may find where you have found. 



LETTER OP THE AUTHOR 



to her confessor: 



SERVING AS A PREFACE 



Hail ! Jesus, Mary, Joseph ! 

It is in their names, and to obey your reverence, that I begin 
writing what I know not myself [beforehand], endeavoring, 
as far as possible, to give up my mind and my pen to be moved 
by the impulse of God, without other motion of my own but 
that of the hand. But, as my infidelities, and our natural 
inclination to mix what is our own with what God does, may 
so betray me, unawares, as that I shall mix my own motes 
and impurities among the divine rays, I hope that our Lord 
will enable you to distinguish them ; and that this impurity, 
not being able to join itself to the Sun, will serve the better 
to discover Him, and display His purity to more advantage. I 
acknowledge, then, that all which shall turn out to be good 
will be from our Lord, myself having no share in it ; seeing 



viii author's letter. 

that, when I begin to write, I do not know what it is to be ; 
and that, if any thoughts of this kind should enter my mind, I 
should consider them as distractions, and any regard I should 
pay to them as great infidelities. All that shall prove worthless 
will be my own; and, as I know that this will be submitted, 
my very dear Father, to your light, I write simply and without 
reflection, what comes into my mind, leaving to your Reverence 
the care of separating the vile from the precious, the human 
from the divine, and error from the truth. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 



PART I. 



CHAPTER I. 

1. Souls touched of God are impelled to seek Him. 2, 3. But in different 
ways, which are explained by a comparison, and reduced to three. 

1. As soon as a soul is touched of God, and its 
return to Him is true and sincere, He gives to it, after 
the first cleansing effected by confession and contrition, 
a certain instinct to return to Him more perfectly, so 
that it may be [entirely] united to Him. Then it 
feels that it is not created for the amusements and tri- 
fles of the world, but that it has a centre and an end,* 

* It is to be observed, that so far as man acknowledges the Lord 
and lives according to His precepts, so far he is elevated above his pro- 
prium, which elevation is out of the light of the world into the light of 
heaven. Man does not know that he is thus elevated above his pro- 
prium while he lives in the world, because it is not sensibly perceived 
by him ; but still there is such elevation, or, as it were, attraction of 
the interior understanding and interior will of man unto the Lord, 
and thence a conversion of the face of man as to his spirit unto Him. 
This, however, is manifested to the good man after death; for then the 
conversion of the face is perpetual to the Lord, and there is, as it were, 
an attraction unto Him as to a common centre. — A. E. 646. 
2 



10 SPIRITUAL TORHENTS. 

whither it must endeavor to return, and out of which 
it can never find true repose. 

2. This instinct is communicated to the soul in a 
very high measure, though higher with some than with 
others, according to the designs which God has with 
them ; but they ail have a loving impatience to be 
purified, and to take the ways and means necessary to 
return to their source and origin. They may be com- 
pared to rivers, which, after issuing from their sources, 
flow with a perpetual course into the sea. Some of 
these rivers you see moving majestically and slowly, 
and others more rapidly. But there are some rivers 
and torrents which run with a frightful impetuosity 
that nothing can check. All the burdens you might 
put upon them, and all the dikes you might erect to 
hinder their course, would serve only to redouble its 
violence. 

3. It is thus with these souls. Some advance gently 
towards perfection, never arriving at the sea, or reach- 
ing it very late ; being satisfied to lose themselves in 
some stronger and more rapid river, which hurries 
them along with itself to the sea. Others, of the 
second kind, proceed thither more decidedly and rap- 
idly than the first. They even carry along with them 
to the sea a large number of smaller streams ; but 
they are dull and sluggish in comparison with the last, 
who hurry on with so much impetuosity that they are 
fit for very few purposes. No one dares sail on them, 
or trust them with any merchandise, except in certain 
places and at certain times. They are mad, headlong 
streams, dashing themselves against rocks, creating 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 11 

terror by their sound, and stopping for nothing. The 
second, on the other hand, are more agreeable and 
more useful. Their majesty is pleasing to behold ; they 
are quite loaded with merchandise ; and all persons 
venture upon them without fear or danger. 

It is proposed to consider, by the help of grace, 
these three class of persons, under the three figures 
above mentioned, beginning with the first, and ending 
aptly with the last.* 



CHAPTER II. 



Of the first way, which is active and of meditation, 1 — 5. What it is, its in- 
firmities, usages, occupations, advantages, &c, 6 — 9. Important coun- 
sel, a disregard of which is the source of almost all the disputes and 
difficulties which have been raised about the passive ways and of the 
unreasonable things laid to their charge, 10 — 12. Souls fitted for medi- 
tation: they should be led thereby to the affections. Advice touching 
dryness and want of power, 13, 14. Spiritual and interior reading, books 
and authors, are attacked without good reason, 15, 16. Advice touching 
directors, both good and bad, 17—19. Capacity and incapacity of souls. 
The simple more hopeful than great reasoners. 

1. Souls of the first kind are those who, after their 
conversion, give themselves to meditation, or to the 
works themselves of charity ; they practise some out- 
ward austerities ; in a word, they endeavor by degrees 
to purify themselves, to remove certain striking sins, 

* There are three kinds of men within the church, namely, those 
who are in love to the Lord, those who are in charity towards their 
neighbor, and those who are in the affection of truth. — A. C. 3653. 



12 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

and even some venial ones of a voluntary kind. They 
labor* according to their little strength to advance by 
little and little, but do so feebly and slowly.f 

2. As their source is not abundant, a drought almost 
exhausts them. There are even places, at such times, 
where they are quite dried up. They do not, indeed, 
cease to flow from their source ; but it is in so feeble a 
manner as scarcely to be perceived.^ These rivers 
carry no merchandise, or but little ; and if, for the 
public good, they must be made to do so, it is requi- 
site for this purpose that art should make good the 
defects of nature, and find means to swell them, either 
by emptying into them some ponds, or by joining to 
them other rivers of the same kind, and thus increas- 
ing their waters ; whereby, by helping one another, 

* That the confirmation of truth is also signified [by C( six years 
shall he serve"] is, because spiritual truth, which is called the truth 
of faith, is confirmed by labor and combat. — A. C. 8975. 

f In the spiritual church -which the sons of Israel represented, 
there are two kinds of men, — some who are in the truths of faith, and 
not in correspondent good of life; and some who are in the good 
of charity, and in correspondent truth of faith. They who are in the 
good of charity, and in correspondent truth of faith, are they who 
constitute the very church itself, and are men of the internal church. 
In the internal sense of the word, these are they who are called the 
Sons of Israel : these are of themselves free, because they are in good, 
for they who are led of the Lord by good are free ; but they who are 
in the truth of faith, and not in correspondent good of life, are men 
of the external spiritual church. These are they who, in the internal 
sense of the word, are meant by Hebrew servants. — A. C. 8974. 

$ They who love truth for the sake of truth from external or 
natural affections, when they hear truth, also rejoice ; but they do 
not think about a life according to it : nevertheless, it flows in from 
the internal, while they are ignorant of it. — A. C. 10, 683. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 13 

they may be made capable of carrying some small 
boats, not to the sea, but to some of those commanding 
rivers of which we shall speak hereafter. 

3. These souls are usually but little engaged inte- 
riorly. They labor on the outside, and seldom get 
beyond meditation ; for which reason they are not fit 
for great things. They do not commonly carry mer- 
chandise, that is to say, they have nothing for others ; 
and God makes use of them, for the most part, only 
to convey some small boats, that is, to do some works 
of corporal mercy. Moreover, to derive profit from 
them, they must have emptied into them the ponds of 
sensible graces, or be united to others in the monastic 
life ; in which case, many, of middling endowments in 
grace, succeed in carrying a little boat, but not to the 
sea itself (which is God), into which they do not enter 
during this life, though they do in the next. 

4. It is not meant that these souls are not sanctified 
by this way. There is, indeed, a large number of 
excellent souls commonly esteemed as very virtuous, 
who do not go beyond it; God giving them lights** 
adapted to their state, which sometimes are very beau- 
tiful, and excite the admiration of ordinary Christians. 
Some even of these souls, towards the end of life, 
receive some passive lights, proportioned to the faith- 
fulness which they have maintained in their way ;f but, 

* They who are of the external church are clearly in its externals, 
and obscurely in its internals ; whereas they who are of the internal 
church are clearly in internals, and obscurely in externals. — A. C. 
8762. 

f Every man, when he is regenerating, first becomes a man of the 



14 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

for the most part, they do not get out of themselves : 
all their graces and lights, being after a created man- 
ner, — I mean, proportioned to their capacity, — are 
distinguished, perceived, and accompanied with fer- 
vors ;* and the more these lights are distinguished, 
perceived, and accompanied with fervors, the more they 
attach themselves thereto, thinking there can be no- 
thing greater in this life. 

5. The most favored of these souls practise virtue 
with much generosity. They have a thousand holy 
inventions and a thousand practices for seeking God, 
and continuing in His presence. All, however, is done 
by their own proper efforts, aided and assisted by 
grace. Their own operation appears to exceed that of 
God, and that of God only concurs with their own.f 

6. I believe that one who should endeavor to move 
these souls to a higher kind of prayer, would not suc- 



external church, but afterwards a man of the internal church ; they 
who are in the internal church are in superior intelligence and wisdom 
to those who are of the external church, and on that account also more 
interiorly in heaven. — A. C. 7840. 

* They think of the Lord as of another man, and not as of God; 
and they think of love to Him from a certain worldly love. 

f The first state [of those who are reformed and become spiritual] 
is, that they suppose they do good, and think truth from themselves ; 
thus from proprium, knowing no otherwise at that time; and when it 
is told them that all good and all truth is from the Lord, they do not, 
indeed, reject it, but do not acknowledge it in heart, because they are 
not sensible, nor do they inwardly perceive, that any thing flows in 
from any other source than from themselves. Inasmuch as all who 
are reformed are at first in such a state, therefore they are left of the 
Lord in proprium; but still they are led of Him by their proprium, 
themselves being ignorant of it. — A. C. 2G78. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 15 

ceed ; and this for several reasons. The first is, that, 
as they have nothing supernatural, except in proportion 
to their labor, if you take their labor from them, you 
stop the flow of their graces ; they being like pumps, 
which give water only in proportion as they are worked. 
You will even observe in these souls a great facility in 
reasoning,* and in availing themselves of their facul- 
ties, an activity always vigorous and strong, a desire 
to be always doing something further and something 
new towards perfecting themselves, and in their times 
of dryness an anxiety to throw them off, as well as 
their faults. f 

7. These souls are greatly tossed between high and 
low. At one time they do wonders, at another they 
languish and creep ; they do not hold an even tenor 
of progress. Inasmuch as the main principle of wor- 



* But that the Lord is good itself, and that every thing which is of 
love to Him and of charity towards the neighbor is good, and that 
every thing which asserts and confirms this is truth, they know but 
very obscurely ; yea 3 they even entertain doubts herein, and admit 
reasonings against it ; and so long as they are in such a state, it is 
impossible for the light of truth from the Lord to flow in. — A. C. 
2935. 

f In this verse [Glen. xxi. 14] is described of what quality in the 
beginning is the state of those who are reformed, viz. that they are 
carried away into various errors ; for it is impressed on them of the 
Lord to think much about eternal life, thus much about the truths of 
faith ; but because they do this from proprium, as was said, they must 
needs wander hither and thither, as in doctrine so in life, catching at 
that as truth which was inseminated from infancy, or which is im- 
pressed upon them by others, or which is thought of by themselves, 
besides that they are led away by various affections which they are 
ignorant of. — A. C. 2679. 



16 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

ship resides with them in the faculties,* when these 
faculties are dried up, whether from want of labor on 
their part, or of correspondence on the part of God, 
they fall into discouragement, or else overwhelm them- 
selves with austerities, and efforts to recover, by 
themselves, what they have lost. They do not possess, 
like these other souls, a deep peace or calm in their 
distractions,! but, on the contrary, are always on the 
alert to combat them, or to complain of them. They 
are commonly scrupulous, and entangled in their own 
ways, J unless they happen to be gifted with a consid- 
erable strength of mind. 

8. These souls, then, should not be led to passive 
prayer. This would be to ruin them beyond help, by 

* The good in which he [the man of the external church] is, is 
not from a spiritual origin, but from a natural origin. — A. C. 8977. 

T In the beginning, he [the man who is regenerating] is in a state 
of tranquillity ; but as he passes into new life, so also he passes into an 
untranquil state ; for the evils and falsities which he had before im- 
bibed, emerge and show themselves, and disturb him, and at length 
to such a degree that he is immersed in temptations and vexations 
from the diabolical crew, who are in the continual endeavor to destroy 
the state of this new life. But still he has inmostly a state of 
peace ; for, unless this were the case, he could not engage in combat. 
— A.C. 3696. 

^ That the spiritual are held entangled in the scientific natural, 
as to the truths of faith, the case is this : the spiritual have not a 
perception of good and truth like the celestial, but, instead thereof, 
they have conscience, &c. — A. C. 2831. 

They who are in the affection of truth think, inquire, and debate 
whether a thing be true or not true, whether it be so or not so; and 
when they are confirmed that it is true, or that it is so, they further 
think, inquire, and debate what it is: thus they stick in the very 
threshold, and are incapable of being admitted into wisdom, until they 
are void of doubt. — A. C. 2718. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 17 

taking from them their means * of advancing towards 
God. For, if you take from a person who is obliged 
to travel, but who has neither boats nor coaches nor 
any means of progress but walking, the use of his 
feet, you put it out of his power to go forward ; and 
so, if you take from these souls their own operation,! 
which is their feet, they would never make any pro- 
gress. 

9. Here, I think, is the source of the disputes which 
at present take place among persons given to prayer. 
Those who are in the passive kind of prayer, knowing 

* In this verse [Gen. xxi. 14] is described of what quality in the 
beginning is the state of those who are reformed, viz. that they are 
carried away into various errors ; for it is impressed on them of the 
Lord to think much about eternal life, thus much about the truths 
of faith ; but because they do this from proprium, as was said, they 
must needs wander hither and thither, as in doctrine so in life, catch- 
ing at that as truth which was insemenated from infancy, or which is 
impressed upon them by others, or which is thought of by themselves; 
besides that they are led away by various affections which they are 
ignorant of: they are like fruits as yet unripe, whereunto form, beauty, 
and flavor cannot be in a moment imparted; or they are like tender 
shoots, which cannot in a moment put forth flower, or grow up into 
the ear. Nevertheless, the things which then enter, although for the 
most part erroneous, are yet such as may serve to promote growth; 
and these things afterwards, when reformation is effected, are partly 
separated, partly made serviceable for introducing as it were nourish- 
ments and juices into the subsequent life, partly are adapted, as far 
as may be, to the goods and truths afterwards implanted of the Lord, 
and partly serve spiritual things for ultimate plans : thus they serve 
as continual means for reformation, which means follow in perpetual 
connection and order. — A. C. 2679. 

•j- Inasmuch as all who are reformed are at first in such a state, 
therefore they are left of the Lord in proprium ; but still they are led 
of Him by their proprium, themselves being ignorant of it. — A. C. 
2678. 



18 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

the good they derive from it, would have everybody 
walk in it ; others, on the contrary, who are in medita- 
tion, would confine all to their way, which would be 
an inexpressible loss and injury. What is to be done 
here ? We must take the middle course, and ascertain 
whether souls are fit for the one way or the other. 

10. The experienced director may know this by 
their unwillingness to continue in a state of repose 
and to give themselves up to be led by the Spirit of 
God, by a swarm of faults and failings into which they 
fall, almost without seeing or knowing them ;? or, in 
case they are persons of a human discretion and pru- 
dence, by a certain dexterity in covering up their faults 
from themselves and others, by an attachment to their 
feelings, and by a large number of faults which cannot 
here be enumerated, but which the experienced director 
will know.f 

Must they, then, be left all their life in reasoning 1 
I believe, that, if they are happy enough to find them 
a skilful director, he will not fail to advance them 
much beyond this. A vast number of souls, who 
believe themselves fit only for meditation, would reach 

* Besides that they [in the first state of reformation] are led away 
by various affections which they are ignorant of. — A. C. 2679. 

f They who do not suffer themselves to be regenerated, but only 
to be reformed, do not act from affection, but from obedience. If they 
seem to themselves to act from the heart and from a free principle, it 
is for the sake of somewhat of self-glory, which makes it to be so 
apperceived; nor do they act truth for the sake of truth, nor good 
for the sake of good, but for the sake of the delight arising from that 
glory : thus neither do they exercise charity towards the neighbor for 
the sake of the neighbor, but that they may be seen and that they 
may be recompensed. — A. C. 8987. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 19 

the highest degree of perfection, if they only found 
an accomplished director. So far would a director 
who is in grace be from injuring, that he would help 
them vastly, making them walk according to the whole 
extent of the Divine will towards them ; so that they 
should neither run before grace, nor be slack to follow 
it, but should second and correspond to it. A director 
of ordinary endowments in grace, on the contrary, 
checks the progress of souls, hinders them from ad- 
vancing, and appropriates them to himself. 

11. The experienced director, then, will incline 
these souls to deal less in reasonings, and more in affec- 
tions ; he will strip them gradually of their reasoning 
habits,*' substituting good affections! in place of them ; 
and if he sees them growing by degrees in simplicity, 
and finding more delight in affection than in reasoning, 
the latter drying up by little and little, it is a sign 
that there is something to be done in these souls, on 
behalf of spiritual life. 

12. It is to be observed, however, that if the habit 
of reasoning should cease from weakness in the per- 
son, and these souls should feel themselves inclined, 
not to love, but only to be inactive from stupidity and 
mental indolence, they should be led to active exercise. 
If they cannot do it by the understanding, they should 

* There are spirits who are disposed to reason on all subjects, hav- 
ing no perception of what is good and true ; nay, the more they reason, 
the less perception they have. — A. C. 1385. 

f The rational is not born from sciences and knowledges, but of 
the affection of sciences and knowledges ; as may appear solely from 
this, that no one can possibly become rational, unless some delight or 
affection of sciences and knowledges influence him. — A. C. 1895. 



20 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

at least by affection and the will. For souls who 
begin to experience spiritual dryness by grace are not 
more imperfect, the more they experience of it :* on 
the contrary, they have an instinct to pursue them- 
selves, in order to combat themselves, and to pursue the 
light in order to find it again and follow it. They 
must, then, be assisted, and be led, not to strip them- 
selves, but to fill the will rather than the understand- 
ing. They should not be led to seek states of repose, 
but to run with all their strength, according to their 
little ability, until it shall please God to relieve their 
labor of walking by some conveyance, or rather, 
according to my original comparison, until these fee- 
ble little streams find the river or the great estuary, 
which receives them into its bosom, and carries them 
into the sea. 

13. I know not why there is such an outcry against 
spiritual books, and the persons who write and speak 
of interior ways. I maintain that they can do no 
harm, except to some who choose to be ruined for their 
own pleasure, to whom' not only these things are hurt- 
ful, but every thing besides, being like spiders who 
change flowers into poison. To humble souls desirous 
of perfection, they cannot be prejudicial, seeing it is 
impossible that they should understand and make use 



* As to what further regards desolation, it is on account of appe- 
tite ; for goods and truths are received according to appetite, and the 
desires which are from appetite, when they are obtained, constitute 
what is satisfactory and happy: wherefore, in the other life, they 
who are in desolation are frequently refreshed, and enjoy their desires. 
By such vicissitudes all are perfected. — A.C. 6110. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 21 

of them, if the gift therefor is not imparted to them ; 
for, what books soever they may read, they cannot 
imagine to themselves states which, inasmuch as they 
are supernatural, are not to be apprehended by the 
imagination, but only by experience.* Moreover, 
even if one should be willing to deceive himself, and 
to make use of terms he had met with in reading, the 
skilful director, by the questions he would put, would 
quickly detect the deception. Besides which, the state 
of a soul in any given degree implies all the conse- 
quences of that state, and perfection advances step by 
step with interior progress.! 

It is not meant to deny that there are souls advanced 
in prayer, who will have faults apparently greater than 
those of ordinary souls ; but these faults are not alike 
either as to nature or as to quality. 

14. The second reason for saying that these books 
cannot do hurt, is, because they enjoin so many deaths, 
so many separations from the world, so many things 
to be conquered and destroyed, that the soul would 
never have strength enough for the undertaking, if its 
interior were not in a true state. And even if it 
should undertake the task, it would derive from the 
very practices recommended only the result which 
meditation yields, which is only a laboring at the 
destruction of self. The whole difference is, that the 

* But whereas it is not known from any internal sensation or per- 
ception what good is, therefore also such things cannot come to be 
known; for what a man is ignorant of, this he does not understand, 
notwithstanding its being presented to him. — A. C. 5365. 

| Perfection increases towards interior things. — A. C. Index. 



22 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

soul would not act by a divine, but only by a virtuous 
principle, — a thing which, the experienced director 
would soon discover. 

15. For this reason a soul should never undertake 
to lead itself in the ways of religion, nor be afraid of 
having a director too much enlightened. To seek any 
other than such an one would be to deceive one's self, 
and, from mere cowardice, to limit the Spirit of God 
by limiting the perfection it bestows to this or that 
particular. 

What I conclude from this is, that the most spiritual 
director should always be chosen. Such an one will be 
useful, in whatever degree the person may be ; and God 
will grant to you, ye who hope for nothing supernatu- 
ral, by this man, so dear to Him, what He would not 
grant to you by yourselves. 

16. But as for those directors who appropriate souls 
to themselves, who would fain conduct them in their 
own way, and not in God's ; who would put limits to 
His graces, and fix barriers to hinder them from ad- 
vancing, — as for these directors, I say, who know 
but one way, and who would fain make all the world 
walk in it, the mischief they do to souls is remediless, 
because they keep them fixed, all their lives, to certain 
things which prevent God from communicating Him- 
self to them without bounds. 

What an account will they not have to render for 
these souls 1 If they have not light enough to con- 
duct them, why do they not suffer them to go to 
masters more advanced ? They should have charity 
enough to advise it themselves. We should do in 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 23 

the spiritual life, it seems to me, as we do in schools. 
Scholars are not kept always in the same class ; they 
are transferred to higher ones, and the teachers of the 
Sixth form and the Fifth do not intermeddle with the 
teaching of Philosophy. O human sciences ! ye are of 
so little account, and yet so much care is taken of you ! 
O mystical and divine science ! thou art so great and 
so necessary, and yet thou art neglected, limited, con- 
strained, and tortured ! Oh, shall there never be a 
school of prayer ! Alas ! by seeking to make a study 
of it, men have spoiled all. They have endeavored to 
give rules and measures to the Spirit of God, which is 
without measure. 

17. There is no soul which is not capable of prayer, 
and which cannot and ought not to apply itself thereto. 
The coarsest and dullest persons are capable of it. I 
know this from experience. Certain persons applied 
to me, who had an almost invincible incapacity for 
prayer, who were unwilling to give themselves thereto, 
and who, after having done so for a time, wished 
to throw it up entirely ; but, as they had great con- 
fidence in me, I obliged them, by a gentle violence, 
to continue in spite of their repugnance and the little 
advantage they thought themselves reaping ; for they 
believed themselves quite unfit for it. These persons, 
after persevering for several years, reached a high de- 
gree of infused prayer. They have confessed to me, 
of their own accord, that, if I had not been firm, they 
should have given all up, and have been lost. Now, 
if these souls had fallen in with some directors, they 
would have told them without hesitation, that their 



24 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

having passed four and five years in praying, without 
being able either to meditate or to be warmed with the 
love of God, or becoming more perfect, was a sign that 
God did not call them to this kind of prayer. Poor, 
impotent souls ! you are more fit than others to answer 
the designs of God ; and, if you are faithful, you will 
succeed better than those high reasoners who rather 
make a study of prayer than pray. 

18. I say yet further, that the poor souls who appear 
so impotent and incapable, are very well adapted to 
contemplation, provided they do not grow weary of 
knocking at the door, and of waiting with humble 
patience until it is opened to them. These great rea- 
soners,* these understandings so fertile that they 
cannot remain a moment in silence before God, who 
appear to have an admirable facility, and a perpetual 
stream of words, who know so well how to give an 
account of their prayer and of all its parts, who can 
always pray as they like and with the same methods, 
who expatiate at will on all the subjects they take up, 
who are so well pleased with themselves and their own 
lights, who refine on the preparations and methods of 
prayer, will never in the least advance in it, and after 
ten or twenty years of such practice will be still the 
same. O my God ! will men undertake to teach others 
how to testify love to love itself ? Alas ! when even 
a wretched creature is to be loved, do we set about it 

* The spirits who reason much in the other life perceive little what 
is true and good ; wherefore neither can they be admitted into the 
interior angelic societies, for nothing of intelligence can be communi- 
cated to them there. — A. C. 6324. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 25 

by plan and method ? The most ignorant in this mat- 
ter are the most skilful ; and the case is the same, but 
in a vastly higher degree, with the Divine Love. 

19. Wherefore, O prudent director ! if a poor soul 
that has never prayed applies to you to be taught 
how, teach him to love God heartily ; make him cast 
himself headlong into love,* and he will soon be con- 
queror. If he has a nature little adapted to love, let 
him do his best, and wait in patience till love itself 
shall make him love, in its own way, rather than 
yours. Simple, short, moving subjects, requiring lit- 
tle reasoning, are the best ones for beginners. Solid 
truths, read and somewhat digested at other times 
than those of prayer, will do as much as meditation ; 
but make them employ the period of prayer in loving 
much. 

* For nothing lives in the external man but affection ; the reason 
of which is because the affection of good descends from the celestial, 
that is, from celestial love, which vivifies all into which it flows. — 
A. C. 1589. 

All delight, blessedness, and happiness is solely from love; but ac- 
cording to the quality of the love, such is the delight, blessedness, and 
happiness. — A. C. 2718. 



26 SPIRITUAL TOKKEXTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

1, 2. Of the second way of the soul's return to God, which is passive, hut 
still a way of light, and of the two introductions into it. 3 — 6. Descrip- 
tion of these souls, and their great advantages. 7 — 17. Several necessary 
cautions and observations touching these souls ; the way of leading them ; 
their dispositions, practices, perfections, imperfections, and trials. 

1. Souls of the second kind are like those large 
rivers which move with slow and stately steps. They 
flow with pomp and majesty. The eye distinguishes 
their course, which has a certain order. They are la- 
den with merchandise, and can themselves go to the 
sea without emptying into other rivers. But they 
reach it only at a late period, their advance being 
grave and slow. Moreover, there are some which 
never enter it, losing themselves for the most part in 
other greater rivers, or else ending in some arm of the 
sea. Many of these rivers serve only to carry mer- 
chandise, with which they are heavily burdened. 
They can be checked by dams, and turned aside at 
certain places. Such are the souls who are in the pas- 
sive way of light. Their source is very abundant. 
They are laden with gifts, graces, and heavenly favors. 
They are the admiration of their age, and very many 
saints who shine in the church like brilliant stars have 
never passed this degree. 

2. These souls are of two kinds. Those of the one 
kind begin by the common way, and are afterwards 
drawn to passive contemplation by the goodness of 
God, who takes pity on their labor, so unfruitful, 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 27 

dry, and arid ; or does it to reward their first faithful- 
ness. 

The others are taken as it were all at once. They 
are seized by the heart, and feel themselves loving 
without having become acquainted with the object of 
their love. For there is this difference between divine 
and human love, that the latter supposes a knowledge 
of its object, because, as it is without, the senses must 
be determined thereto, and the senses are determined 
to it only because it is communicated to them : the 
eyes see, and the heart loves. The case is not the 
same with divine love. Since God has an absolute 
control over the heart of man, and is its first princi- 
ple and its end, there is no necessity that He should 
make it acquainted with Himself [beforehand]. He 
takes it by assault, without offering battle : the heart 
is unable to resist Him. This, however, does not in- 
fer that God makes use of absolute power and violence, 
except in some cases where He does so to display 
His might. He takes these souls, then, as was said, 
making them burn all of a sudden ; though, in com- 
mon, He gives them only flashes of light, which daz- 
zle them and carry them away. 

3. Nothing is so full of light and so ardent as these 
souls : directors are delighted when they have them 
under their care. And as the labor of these souls is 
not thorough-going, they are early made perfect, ac- 
cording to the degree which they have to perfect. For 
as God does not exact of them a perfection so eminent 
as from those next to be spoken of, nor a purification 
so thorough, their defects are sooner removed. 



28 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

4. It is not meant that the souls we are speaking 
of do not appear much higher than those that come 
next, to such as have not divine discernment. For 
they reach, exteriorly, a remarkable degree of perfec- 
tion, God exalting their natural^ capacity in an eminent 
degree. They have wonderful states of union with 
Him, God adapting Himself to their capacity ,f which 
He exalts in a certain extraordinary manner. But 
still these persons are never truly annihilated, and God 
does not commonly take them out of their own self- 
hood, that they may lose themselves in Him. 

5. Notwithstanding, these souls excite the admira- 
tion and astonishment of men. God gives them gifts 
upon gifts, graces upon graces, lights upon lights, 
visions, revelations, interior words, ecstasies, ravish- 
ments, &c. It appears as if He had no other care than 
to enrich and beautify them, and to communicate to 
them His secrets. All delights are for them. 

* The spiritual man is not the interior rational man, but the inte- 
rior natural; the interior rational man is what is called celestial; 
what the difference is between the spiritual and celestial man has been 
often told above. — A. C. 4402. 

t As to what pertains to the other [arcanum], viz. that this ob- 
scure with the spiritual is illuminated by the Lord's Divine Human, 
it is an arcanum which cannot be explained to the apprehension, for 
it is an influx of the Divine which would be described; only some 
idea may be had of it from this, that if the Supreme Divine itself 
flowed into such good as has been described, defiled with so many evils 
and falses, it could not be received; and if it should be received in 
any respect, the man who had such good would feel infernal tor- 
ment, and they would perish. But the Divine Human of the Lord 
may flow in with such persons, and illuminate such good, as the sun 
flows into the dense clouds which are in the morning variegated into 
the colors of the dawn. — A. C. 2716. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 29 

6. It is not that they do not bear great crosses and 
violent temptations, which are like dark shades, which 
only serve to exalt the splendor of their virtues ;* for 
these temptations are repelled with vigor, these crosses 
are borne with strength, — they even wish for more 
of them,f — they are all fire and flames, all languor, 
all love. They have great hearts, ready to undertake 
every thing. In a word, in a very little while they 
are prodigies and the miracles of their age. God 
makes use of them to do miracles, and it appears as 
if it were enough that they desire a thing for God to 
grant it to them. It seems as though He delighted 
to accomplish all their desires and to effectuate all their 
wills. They are in a high degree of mortification ; 
they practise great austerities, some more and some 
less, according to their state and degree, — for in 
every state there are many degrees, and some arrive 
at a perfection much more eminent than others. In 
the same way there are many different degrees. 

7. The director can hurt these souls much, or help 
them much, because, if he does not understand their 
way, he will either oppose them, causing them much 
pain, as was the case with St. Theresa (which, how- 
ever, is not the thing chiefly to be feared), or else he 

* Temptations also give the quality of the apperception of good 
and truth, by the opposites which evil spirits then infuse ; from the 
opposites apperceived are procured relatives, from which all quality is ; 
for no one knows what good is, unless he also knows what is not good ; 
nor what truth is, unless he knows what is not true. — A. C. 5356. 

f There are some who willingly endure to be vastated, and thereby 
to put off the false principles which they had brought with them out 
of the world.— A. C. 1107. 



30 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

will admire them too much, and will let them know 
the esteem in which he holds them. This is the great 
hurt most commonly done to souls, because their minds 
are thus diverted to themselves, and they are made to 
rest in the gifts of God, instead of being made to run 
after God by His gifts. 

The design of God in thus distributing, and even 
pouring out profusely, His graces to them, is to draw 
them to Himself; but they make a quite different use 
of His mercies. They rest in them, they ponder 
them, they look at them, they appropriate them to 
themselves ;• and from this come vanities, self-compla- 
cencies, self-esteem, preference of one's self to others, 
and often the ruin and destruction of the interior.f 

8. These souls are admirable as regards themselves ; 
and sometimes, by special grace, they can greatly help 
others, especially if they have been sinners. But they 



* In the beginning, all who are reformed suppose that good is from 
themselves, and thence that by the good which they do they merit 
salvation ; for to imagine that by the good which they do they merit 
salvation is a sure consequence of imagining good to be from them- 
selves, for the one coheres with the other. — A. C. 4174. 

The truth which is given by the Lord is at first received as if it 
were not given; for man before regeneration supposes that he pro- 
cures for himself truth ; and so long as he supposes this, he is in spirit- 
ual theft. — A. C. 5747. 

f With man about to be regenerated, the case is thus, that his first 
affection of truth is very impure ; for there is in it an affection of use 
and of end for the sake of himself, for the sake of the world, for the 
sake of glory in heaven and the like things, which look towards him- 
self, but not towards the community, the Lord's kingdom, and still 
less towards the Lord. Such an affection must needs precede: never- 
theless, it is successively purified of the Lord. — A. C. 3089. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 31 

are not, for the most part, so fit to lead others as those 
next described. For as they are very strong in God, 
and in an eminent degree, they have a certain horror 
towards sin, and often experience aversion towards 
sinners, and certain antipathies which yet have some- 
thing of grace in them. If they are superiors, they 
are without a certain motherly compassion for sinners ; 
and as they have never themselves experienced the 
miseries that are told them, they are astonished, and 
harangue about them. They exact too high a degree 
of perfection from others, and do not put them in the 
way thereto by little and little ; * and if they chance 
to meet with souls in the state of weakness,! they do 
not help them according to the degree they are in, and 
according to the designs of God, and they often even 
put them out of their right way. They find it diffi- 
cult to converse with imperfect souls, preferring their 
own solitude and their own life to all the accommoda- 
tions of charity 4 

* Their good [of those who are in doctrinals of faith], so to speak, 
being hard, not suffering itself to be bended, not communicative, thus 
not in heaven, but upon the threshold to heaven. — A. C. 3459. 

f It is to be known that with those who are regenerating there is 
effected a turning, namely, that they are led by truth to good, and 
that afterwards from good they are led to truth. When this turning 
takes place, or when the state is changed, and becomes inverse to the 
foregoing, then there is mourning ; for then they are let into tempta- 
tion, whereby the things of the proprium are weakened and debilita- 
ted, and good is insinuated, and with good a new will-desire, and with 
this a new freedom, thus a new proprium. — A. C. 5773. 

^ A man whose rational is such that he is only in truth, although 
in the truth of faith, and not at the same time in the good of charity, 
is altogether of this character; he is morose, impatient, opposite to 



32 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

9. One who listens to these persons without being 
divinely enlightened will believe that they are in the 
same ways with those of the last degree, and even 
more advanced. They make use of the same terms, 
such as death, loss, annihilation, &c. ; and it is indeed 
true, that in their own way, they die, are annihilate, 
they lose themselves in God. For often their facul- 
ties are lost or suspended in prayer, and they even lose 
the control of them, so that they cannot avail them- 
selves of them or operate with them ; all that they 
have being received passively. Thus these souls are 
passive, but are still in light, in love, in strength. If 
you examine things closely and converse with them, 
you will see that they have very good and even admi- 
rable wills. Their desires are the greatest and loftiest 
possible ;, they carry perfection as far as it will go ; 
they are detached ; they love poverty. Notwithstand- 
ing, they are and always will be proprietary even of 
virtue, but in a way so delicate that only the divine 
eyes can discover it.* 

all others, viewing every one as in the false, instantly rebuking, chas- 
tising, and punishing: he is without pity, neither does he apply him- 
self and endeavor to bend the minds of others ; for he regards every 
thing from truth, and nothing from good. — A. C. 1949. 

* The reason that man ought not to claim any thing to himself 
which is from the Lord, thus ought not to claim truth and good, 
is, that he may be in the truth; and so far as he is in the truth, 
so far he is in the light in which the angels in heaven are ; and so far 
as he is in that light, so far he is in intelligence and wisdom; and so 
far as he is in intelligence and wisdom, so far he is in happiness. This 
is the reason why man ought to acknowledge, in faith of the heart, 
that nothing of truth and good is from himself, but all from the Lord ; 
and this because it is so. — A. C. 5749. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 33 

10. The greater part of the saints, whose lives are 
so admirable, have been led by this way. These souls 
are so laden with merchandise that their course is very 
slow. What, then, must be done with them 1 Will 
they never quit this way ? No, not unless they are 
helped by a miracle of providence, and led by a direc- 
tor divinely enlightened, who shall dispose them neither 
to resist these graces, nor to look at them, but to go 
beyond them, so that they shall not stop in them for a 
moment. For these lookings at themselves are like 
dams which keep water from flowing on its way. 

1 1 . Their director should explain to them that there 
is a surer way for them, — that of faith ; and that God 
gives these favors only by reason of their weakness. 
Their director, I repeat, should lead them on from the 
sensible to the supernatural, from the perceived and cer- 
tain* to the very deep and very certain darkness f of 
faith. He should not seem to lay any stress upon all this 
experience. He should not make them write about 
it, unless the soul should be so notably advanced in its 
way, that, having knowledges necessary to be known, 
he should deem it necessary to have them put in wri- 

* They who have conscience do not swear, and still less they who 
have a perception of good and truth, that is, celestial men: these 
latter do not even confirm by reasons with themselves, and amongst 
themselves ; but only say that it is so, or that it is not so : wherefore, 
these are still further removed from an oath. — A. C. 2842. 

t " I will give thee the treasures cf darkness, and the hidden 
wealth of hiding places, that thou mayest know that I am Jehovah," 
Isa. xlv. 3; where the treasures of darkness and the hidden wealth 
of hiding places denote such things as relate to heavenly wisdom or 
intelligence, which are hidden from the natural man. — A. C. 10,227. 



34 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

ting. Even then it would be better they should not 
write ; for it is also true [of others] that they should 
build nothing on these knowledges, but only on Provi- 
dence. It is good to know the designs of God, and 
to labor for their accomplishment ; but Providence 
alone ought to furnish the means, and lead to their 
execution. Here there is no room for being deceived. 

It is also unprofitable to seek to determine whether 
these things are from God or not, inasmuch as they 
should be left behind. For, if they are from God, 
they will be brought to pass by Providence by our 
giving up ourselves thereto ; and if they are not, we 
shall not be deceived if we do not stop at them. 

12. These souls experience much more difficulty in 
entering on the way of faith than the first ; and, for 
the most part, they do not enter on it, unless God has 
some extraordinary design with them, and destines 
them to lead others. For, as that which they have is 
so great and so decidedly from God that they are 
assured of it, and have even seen their predictions 
accomplished, they do not believe that there is any 
thing greater in the church of God ; and therefore 
they cling to it. These persons are discreet, prudent, 
— they often feel too strong a zeal towards the weak 
and towards sinners. They would not take a false 
step, so carefully do they guard themselves ; but what 
they will, they will very imperfectly and very strongly.* 

* That " between me and thee, what is this " [Gen. xxiii. 15], 
signifies that he assented, but still willed from self, viz. to be prepared 
or reformed, may appear from the sense of the letter applied to the 
internal sense; which treats of reformation. It was said above by 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 35 

O God ! how many ways of spiritual appropriation are 
there, which appear as great virtues to souls not highly 
enlightened, but which appear as great faults, exceed- 
ing dangerous to those who are so ! * For souls of 
this way regard as virtues what the others consider as 
subtle faults : the light to discover them is not impart- 
ed to them ; and, when they are spoken to about the 
matter, they do not comprehend. f 

13. These souls are firm in their opinions ; and, as 

Ephron, " The field I give thee, and the cave which is therein I give 
thee," verse 11; by which words was signified that they were willing 
to prepare themselves as to the things pertaining to the church and 
faith, that is to reform themselves. That the first state of those who 
are reformed is such, may be seen, n. 2046; but when they are far- 
ther advanced in the knowledges of truth or of faith, then is their, 
second state, that they assent indeed, but still will from self. — A. C. 
2960. 

* All have the faculty of understanding and being wise ; but that 
one is wiser than another is because they do not in like manner as- 
cribe to the Lord all things of intelligence and wisdom, which are all 
things of truth and good ; they who ascribe all things to the Lord are 
wiser than others, since all things of truth and good which constitute 
wisdom flow in from heaven, that is, from the Lord there. The as- 
cribing of all things to the Lord opens the interiors of man towards 
heaven, for thus it is acknowledged that nothing of good and truth 
is from himself; and in proportion as this is acknowledged, in the 
same proportion the love of self departs, and with the love of self 
the thick darkness from falses and evils ; in the same proportion also 
man comes into innocence, and into love and faith to the Lord ; hence 
conjunction with the Divine, influx thence, and illustration. — A. C. 
10, 227. 

f When he [the spiritual man] superadds any thing of himself and 
of his own thought, then, for the most part, the sensual with its falla- 
cies, and the rational with its appearances, prevail, and effect that he 
can scarce acknowledge any pure truth, such as the celestial acknow- 
ledge. — A. C. 2715. 



cK) SPIKITUAL TOEKENTS. 

their grace is great and eminent, they are the more 
assured concerning them. They have rules and mea- 
sures in their obediences, and [their own] prudence 
always accompanies them. In a word, they are strong 
and living in God, although they appear dead. They 
are indeed dead as to their own proper operation, re- 
ceiving light passively ; but they are not dead as to 
their inmost.* 

14. These souls also often enjoy interior silence, a 
delightful peace, and certain absorptions in God, 
which they distinguish and describe very well ; but 
they have not that secret desire to be nothing which 
belongs to the last. They desire, indeed, to be noth- 
ing by a certain perceived annihilation, a deep hu- 
mility, a certain prostration under the boundless 
weight of the divine greatness, which is more difficult 
for them to bear, the more strongly they feel this 
weight of the divine presence. All this is an anni- 
hilation where one stops by the way without being 
annihilated.! They have the sentiment of annihila- 

* For man in genuine humiliation divests himself of all ability to 
think and do any thing from himself, and lends himself altogether to 
the Divine. — A. C. 6866. 

f Regeneration is nothing else than for the natural to be sub- 
jugated, and the spiritual to obtain the dominion; and the natural is 
then subjugated, when it is reduced to correspondence ; and when the 
natural is reduced to correspondence, it then no longer resists, but 
acts as it is commanded, and obeys the dictates of the spiritual, in 
nearly the same manner as the acts of the body obey the dictates of 
the will, and as the speech with the countenance is according to the 
influx of the thought: hence it is evident that the natural ought alto- 
gether to become as nothing, in respect to willing, in order that man 
may become spiritual. — A. C. 5651. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 37 

tion, but not the reality ; for this sentiment still sus- 
tains the soul [in its own proper life], and is a state 
more satisfactory to it than any other, inasmuch as it 
is more sure, and they have a confident knowledge of 
it.* 

15. Such souls, for the most part, do not come to 
God, except after death, with the exception of some 
privileged ones, whom God destines to be the lights 
of His church, or whom He would sanctify in a more 
eminent manner.f These He strips, by little and lit- 
tle, of all their riches. But, as there are few coura- 
geous enough, after possessing so many goods, to be 
willing to lose them all, there are few — fewer than 
can be expressed — who go beyond this degree ; the 
design of God being perhaps that they should not 
do so, and that, " as there are many mansions in 

* Hence it is that the spiritual have not love to the Lord like the 
celestial ; consequently neither have they humiliation, which is essen- 
tial in all worship, and by which good from the Lord may flow in. — 
A.C. 2715. 

t It was said above by Ephron : " The field I give thee, and the 
cave which is therein I give it thee," Gren. xxiii. 11; by which words 
was signified that they were willing to prepare themselves as to the 
things pertaining to the church and to faith, that is, to reform them- 
selves. That the first state of those who are reformed is such, may 
be seen, n. 2046 ; but when they are further advanced in the 
knowledges of truth or of faith, then is their second state, that they 
assent indeed, but still will from self, and this is the state treated of 
in this verse ; but a third state is described presently, that they be- 
lieve they are reformed by the Lord. This is the third state, which 
is followed by a fourth state, viz. that they perceive it to be from 
the Lord ; but there are few who arrive at this state in the life of 
the body, it being an angelic state : yet they who are regenerate 
come into this state in another life. — A. C. 2960. 



38 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

the house of His Father," John xiv. 2, they should 
occupy only this lower one. This may be for want 
of courage on their part, or for want of enlightened 
directors. Those who lead them would believe, per- 
haps, that they had destroyed them, if they saw them 
falling from those eminent gifts and graces. But let 
us leave the causes of this among the hidden things 
of God's Providence. 

16. Some of these souls do not enjoy these free 
gifts, but, instead of them, a generous, deep-seated 
strength, a secret love, gentle and peaceable, pervad- 
ing and vigorous, which consummates their perfection 
and their life. Such are skilful in concealing and 
disguising their faults, always giving them some good 
color or pretext. 

17. The trials * experienced by the souls I have just 
spoken of are also as extraordinary as their state. 
They come from the Devil ; f and although they are 

* That they who are reformed are reduced to ignorance of truth 
or desolation, even to grief and desperation, and that then first they 
receive comfort and help from the Lord, is at this day unknown, by 
reason that few are reformed. They who are such as to be capable of 
being informed, if not in the life of the body, yet in another life, are 
brought into this state, which in another life is well known, and is 
called vastation or desolation. They who are in such vastation or 
desolation are reduced even to desperation. — A. C. 2694. 

Temptations are nothing else but the combats of evil with the 
angels who are attendant on man. — A. C. 741. 

■j- Whereas it is known to few, if to any, what is the nature and 
manner of temptations, because few at this day undergo temptations, 
and they who do undergo them know no other than that it is some- 
what inherent in themselves which is the subject of such suffering, it 
is permitted briefly to explain the matter. They are evil spirits, 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 39 

extremely violent, and quite other in appearance from 
those which are to follow, they notwithstanding still 
serve them for a support. They are given up to the 
Devil, who exercises upon them the utmost of his 
malice ; but they are entirely protected, despite the 
frightful fury of these malignant spirits.^ It re- 
quires a high degree of light to discover the support 
concealed under a state so terrible ; but experience 
gives one to know it. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Of the third way of souls returning to God, which is the passive way of faith, 
and of its first degree. 1 — 4. A brief description of this way under the 
figure of a torrent. 5 — 10. The inclination of the soul to God, its pro- 
prieties, obstacles, effects, explained under the figure of fire. 11 — 18. 
What happens to a soul called to the passive way of faith. Description of 
the first degree of this third way, and of the state of a soul in it. 19, 20. 
The repose it enjoys therein would be hurtful, did not God take it thence 
in order to advance it. 

1. As regards souls of the third degree, what shall 
we say, except that they are like torrents which 
have their source in high mountains ? f They have 

who, on such occasions, excite man's falses and evils, and stir up in 
his memory whatsoever he has thought or done from his infancy. 
This the evil spirits can effect in so cunning and malicious a manner 
as cannot be described. — A. C. 751. 

* But the Lord by angels protects man and restrains the evil spirits 
from wandering out of due bounds, and bringing on man a greater 
inundation than he is capable of sustaining. — A. C. 741. 

f Mountains denote the good of love. — A. C. Index. 

Mountain denotes the Lord, hence things celestial. — Ibid, 



40 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

their source in God Himself, and enjoy not a mo- 
ment's rest until they are lost in Him. Nothing 
stops them, and for this reason they are not burdened 
with any thing. They are quite bare, and run with 
a rapidity which strikes fear into the boldest. These 
torrents run irregularly hither and thither, through 
all places on their way which can afford them passage. 
Their beds are not regular like the others, nor is their 
progress subject to any rule. You see them running 
wherever they can make their way, without stopping 
for any thing. They dash themselves against rocks, 
and fall in loud-sounding cataracts. Sometimes, in 
passing through grounds which are not firm, their 
waters become impure, by sweeping the soil along with 
them in their rapid course. Sometimes they are lost 
in depths and gulfs, and are not found again for a 
considerable distance ; and when, at length, they 
make their appearance for a brief space, it is only to 
plunge anew into some deeper and longer gulf. These 
torrents delight to* show themselves for a time and 
then disappear, and to dash themselves against the 
rocks. Their course is so swift that the eye does not 
distinguish it; there is nothing but a general roar, 
confused and darksome. But, at length, after falling 
from many steeps into gulfs, after being much beaten 
against the rocks, after having been again and again 
lost and recovered, they reach the sea, where they 
happily lose themselves, never to find themselves 
again. 

2. There it is that this torrent, in the exact degree 
that it has been poor, mean, useless, destitute of mer- 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 41 

chandise, is admirably enriched. For it is not rich 
by its own wealth, like other rivers which possess 
only a certain amount of merchandise, or certain rari- 
ties, but rich by the wealth of the sea itself. It carries 
on its back the largest ships ; it is the sea that bears 
these ships, that is to say, itself, because, being lost 
in the sea, it has become one and the same with it.* 

3. It is to be observed, however, that the river 
thus fallen into the sea does not lose its nature, 
although it is so changed and lost that it is no longer 
to be known. It is still what it always was ; but its 
essence is now confounded and lost, not as to reality,, 
but as to quality. For it so takes the quality of the 
ocean's water, that nothing proper to itself is any 
longer discernible ; and the more it abysses itself, 
plunges in and continues in the sea, the more it loses 
its own quality, and assumes the quality of the sea in 
its stead. \ 

4. For what purposes is not this poor torrent now 
fit 1 Its capacity is without limits, since it is that of 
the sea itself. Its riches are immense, — though it- 

* The Lord removes the proprium of man, and gives from His 
own, and in that he dwells. — A. E. 254. 

■j- That by destroying every substance which I have made from off 
the faces of the ground, is signified man's proprium, which is as it 
were destroyed when it is vivified or made alive, appears from what 
■was said above concerning proprium. Man's proprium is wholly evil 
and false, and so long as it remains, so long man is dead; but when 
he undergoes temptations, then it is dispersed, that is, it is loosened 
and tempered by truths and goods from the Lord, and thus it is vivi- 
fied, and appears as if it was not present. Its not appearing, and not 
being any longer hurtful, is signified by destroying, although it is 
never destroyed, but remains. — A. C. 731. 
4 



42 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

self has none, — since they are those of the sea itself. 
i It is then capable of enriching the whole earth. O 
happy loss ! Who can describe thee, or the gain 
which was then made by this river, useless and good 
for nought, despised and shunned; that headlong 
stream to which the smallest boat might not be trust- 
ed, because, unable to keep itself and losing itself so 
often, it would have swallowed it up in its own ruin ? 
What say you to the lot of this torrent, ye great 
rivers flowing with so much majesty, who are the 
joy and admiration of the tribes who wonder at you 
for the vast amount of merchandise displayed upon 
your faces ? This poor torrent, which you looked 
upon with scorn, or at least with compassion, which 
was a thing rejected by all the world, which appeared 
fit for nothing, — what has become of it, and for what 
now is it good ; nor, rather, for what is it not good 1 
What is it that it lacks ? You are now its servants, 
since you carry the wealth you have, either to unload 
it of its abundance, or to bring to it a new supply of 
wealth. 

But before we speak of the happiness of a soul thus 
lost in God, we must begin at the source, and then 
proceed by degrees. 

5. The soul, having its source, as was said, in God, 
has a continual inclination to return to Him ; because, 
as he is its first principle, He is also its last end.- ki 

* Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, signifies that 
the Lord is the self-substituting and only subsisting, from [first] prin- 
ciples to ultimates, from whom are all things, and consequently the 
all in all of heaven and the church. — A. It. 29. 



SPIRITUAL TOKRENTS. 43 

Its course would be boundless, were it not interrupted 
or checked, or altogether stopped, by continual sin and 
unfaithfulness. This is the reason why man's heart is 
in perpetual motion, and can find no rest until it 
has returned to its origin and its centre, which is God ; * 
like fire, which, being separated from its proper sphere, 
is in continual agitation, never resting until it has 
returned thither, when, by one of the miracles of 
nature, though an element so active of itself that it 
consumes every thing by its energy, it enjoys a perfect 
rest.f 

Ye poor souls who are seeking rest in this life, you 
will never find it except in God. Seek to enter again 
into Him ; for there all your longings and pains, all 
your agitations and anxieties, will be reduced to the 
unity of repose. 

6. It is to be observed, that the nearer fire approaches 
its centre, the nearer it approaches a state of repose, 
although the speed of its return thither is perpetually 
increasing. But as soon as no obstacle any longer 
withholds it, it darts upward with an incredible velo- 
city, increasing as/ it approaches its centre ; so that, 
though its velocity augments, its activity diminishes. 
It is the same with the soul : as soon as sin ceases to 

* For heavenly peace flows in, when the lusts arising from the love 
of self and the world are taken away, inasmuch as these lusts are 
what take away peace ; for they infest the interiors of man, and cause 
him at length to place rest in restlessness, and peace in disturbance, 
because he delights in evils. 

f No one can be gifted with this peace, but he who is led of the 
Lord, and is in the Lord, that is, in heaven, where the Lord is all in 
all.— A.C. 5662. 



44 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

hold it back, it runs indefatigably to find God again ; 
and if, which is impossible, it were exempt from sin, 
nothing would hinder its course, which would be so 
swift that it would reach its destination forthwith. 
Not only so, but the nearer it approached to God, the 
more its speed would be augmented, while at the same 
time this speed would become more peaceful. For 
the repose, or rather peace (since it is not then re- 
pose, but a peaceful coursing), would increase, so that 
peace would redouble its speed, and speed would in- 
crease its peace. 

7. That which then causes disturbance is its sins 
, and imperfections, which check for some time the course 
of this soul more or less, according to the greatness 
of the fault. Then the soul becomes fully aware of 
its activity. If, when fire is ascending again to its 
proper sphere, it should meet with obstacles, such as a 
bit of wood or of straw, it would resume its former 
activity, and consume this obstacle or hindrance ; and 
the greater the resistance, the more its activity would 
be increased. If it were a bit of wood, it would require 
a longer and stronger activity to consume it ; but if it 
were only a piece of straw, it would be consumed in 
a moment, and would check its course but very little. 
You will observe that the obstacle which the fire meets 
with would serve only to increase its velocity, by giv- 
ing it a new ardor to overcome all obstacles in joining 
itself to its centre. It is also to be observed, that the 
more obstacles the fire should meet with, and the more 
considerable they were, the more they would retard 
its course ; and if it were always finding new ones, 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 45 

they would be so many objects serving to keep it 
attached to themselves, and to hinder it from return- 
ing to its origin. We know from experience, that, 
if we are always putting wood upon the fire, we shall 
be always keeping it under, and preventing it from 
mounting upwards. 

8. The case is the same with souls. Their natural 
instincts and propensities incline them to God. "Were 
it not for the hindrances they meet with, they would 
run incessantly, without ever stopping in their course. 
These hindrances are their sins and faults, which put 
obstacles in the way of their return to God in propor- 
tion as they are strong and enduring, so that, if they 
are sinning incessantly, they are arrested without ever 
reaching the goal ; and if they die in sin, they have 
no possibility of ever reaching it, being then no longer 
in the way and course [of amendment], and all being 
terminated as regards them.* Others, dying in a 
lesser degree of obstruction, such as is made by venial 
sin, go into the fire of purgatory, that all which the fire 
of love did not consume in this life may then be finally 
consumed. Others, again, advance just so much or 
so little, as the obstacles which they put in their own 
way are stronger or weaker. 

Such souls as have never committed mortal sin must, 
of course, advance more than others. This is true for 

* The Lord never operates unless from first principles by ultimates, 
consequently in fulness ; for He does not reform and regenerate man 
otherwise than by truths in ultimates, which are natural truths; and 
from this circumstance it is, that such as is the quality of man in the 
world, such he remains after his departure out of this world to eter- 
nity. — A. E. 1087. 



46 SPIRITUAL TOKEENTS. 

the most part ; but still, it seems as if God takes more 
pleasure " in making his mercies abound where sin has 
most abounded," Rom. v. 20. 

I think one of the reasons for this fact, with regard 
to those who have not sinned, comes from their having 
a high opinion of their own righteousness in all the 
points to which it extends.*'' If they are virgins, they 
make an idol of their purity, — and so of the rest ; 
and this disorderly attachment, this esteem and love 
of their own righteousness, is an obstacle harder to 
be overcome than the greatest sins ; f because we can- 
not have so strong an attachment to sins, which are 
so ugly in themselves, as we have to our own right- 
eousness ; and God, who never violates our liberty, J 
leaves such souls to take pleasure in their own sanc- 
tity, while He delights to purge away the filth of the 
most miserable. And, to ensure the success of His 
purpose, he gives them a fire both stronger and 

* If man believed, as is the truth, that all good and truth are 
from the Lord, and all evil and falsity from hell, he would not appro- 
priate good to himself, and make it meritorious ; nor would he appro- 
priate evil to himself, and make himself guilty of it. — D. P. 320. 

f Man, by means of these two faculties [freedom and rationality], 
can be so far reformed and regenerated, as he can be led by them to 
acknowledge that all the truth and good which he thinks is from the 
Lord, and not from himself. — D. P. 87. 

^ If the freedom of willing evil, and of making it as of reason by 
confirmations, was taken away from the natural man, liberty and 
rationality would perish, and at the same time will and understand- 
ing ; and he could not be led away from evils, and be reformed ; thus 
not be conjoined to the Lord, and live to eternity: wherefore the Lord 
so guards freedom with man, as man does the pupil of his eye. — 
. D. P. 97. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 47 

more ardent, which, by its activity, consumes these 
gross faults more easily than a lighter fire consumes 
lighter obstacles. It seems even as if God delighted 
to make these guilty souls the throne of His love, that 
He might display His power, and show how He can 
perfect and re-establish them, though so deformed, in 
their first state, and even make them fairer than those 
who were never polluted. 

10. The souls then which have sinned, and for whom,' 
dropping the others, I write, find in themselves a great 
fire, consuming in a moment all their faults and hin- 
drances. They mount aloft with so much the more 
force, as that which held them back was stronger and 
harder to be consumed. They often find themselves 
impeded by notable faults, contracted from former 
habits ; * but this fire consumes them and goes on, 
and this repeatedly, until it finds no more to operate 
on. It must be observed, that the more it goes on 
consuming, the more it grows, and the easier are the 
obstacles it meets with to be consumed ; so that at 
last they are nothing but straws, which, far from check- 
ing its course, only make it more ardent. 

This being premised and understood, it is easy to 
apply it, and to understand the case as it is. It will be 
well, therefore, to take the soul in its first state, and 
go on regularly, if God, who dictates these things, 
(which I see only as they are committed to paper), 
wills me to do so. 

11. God, designing to make the soul His own, in 

* The evils and falses which he had before imbibed emerge and 
come forth. — A. C. 3696. 



48 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

order that He may lose it in Himself in a wonderful 
manner very little known to ordinary believers, begins 
by making it feel interiorly its estrangement from Him- 
self. 

As soon as it feels and knows its estrangement, the 
inclination implanted in it to return to its principle, 
and which was, as it were, extinguished by sin, wakes 
up. It then conceives a true grief for its sins, and 
feels, with pain and trouble, the evil which this aliena- 
tion causes it. 

The restless feeling thus inspired into the soul causes 
it to seek out the means of getting rid of this pain, 
and of entering into a certain repose which it sees afar 
off, but the sight of which serves only to redouble this 
restlessness, and increase its desire of pursuing and 
reaching it.*' 

12. Some of these souls, for want of being instructed 
that they must seek God in their interior, and there 
follow after Him without going out of themselves, 
turn themselves to meditation, and to seeking without 
that which they will never find except within. This 
meditation, for which they are commonly very little 
adapted (because God, who desires something else 
from them, does not allow them to attain any thing by 
this exercise), serves only to increase their desire ; for, 
while their wound is in the heart, they would fain 
apply the plaster without, and this only soothes their 

* But yet, inmostly, lie is in a state of peace; for, unless he were 
in such a state in his inniosts, he would not engage in combat, inas- 
much as he has continual respect to that state, as an end, in the combats 
wherein he is engaged. — A. C. 369C. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 49 

disease, not heals it. They fight for a long time by- 
help of this exercise, and their combat redoubles their 
impotence. And if these souls, of whom God takes 
care Himself, do not meet with some one who can 
show them that they have taken the wrong course, they 
only lose their time, and will continue to lose it, as 
long as they remain without this succor. 

13. But God, all full of mercy, fails not to bring 
them this succor by His Providence, if it were only 
transitorily and for a few days. This succor is not 
sought by themselves, although they are well aware 
that something is wanting to them, without guessing 
at the remedy ; but, by purely providential means, 
they find it without looking for it. For, as they are 
properly the true children of Providence, God sends 
them, without extraordinary methods, all they have 
need of, in a way, as it were, quite natural. 

14. When, therefore, these souls are instructed by 
some one providentially sent to them, that they are 
not in the way of progress, because their wound is 
within, and they would apply the remedy without, — 
when they are instructed, I say, to turn within them- 
selves, and seek in the inmost of their hearts what 
they vainly seek abroad, they discover, with an aston- 
ishment that at once delights and surprises them, that 
they have within themselves the treasure they were 
seeking afar off.* They languish with joy in their 

* The Lord flows in with good through man's inmosts, and there 
conjoins truth: their root must be in the inmost. — A. C. 2879. 

Man is little concerned at this day about the things which are 
transacting interiorly within him, inasmuch as external things occupy 



50 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

new-found liberty. They are all astonished that prayer 
no longer costs them any thing, and that the more 
they gather in their thoughts, and go deeply within 
themselves, the more they experience an indiscribable 
delight that transports and carries them away, so that 
they would fain never cease from this state of love and 
inward concentration.^ 

Observe, if you please, that what they experience, 
delicious as it appears, does not, if they are destined 
to have faith, detain them, but disposes them ever to 
hasten after that certain something with which they 
are not yet acquainted.! The soul is nothing any 
longer but ardor and love. It thinks itself already in 

him wholly; and to him who is wholly occupied by external things, 
that is, when external things are the ends of life, internal things are 
of no account. Hence it is evident why those things which are trans- 
acting inwardly in man are at this day concealed and altogether 
unknown. Such an obscurity of intellect never existed among the 
ancients: their wisdom was to cultivate interior things. — A. C. 5224. 

* The delights which are perceived in things extreme, or corporeal, 
are respectively vile ; for every delight is such that it becomes viler 
the more it proceeds to external things, and happier the more it pro- 
ceeds to things internal. Wherefore, as was said, as external things 
are in order unfolded or unswathed, so much the more pleasant and 
happy delights become — A. C. 996. 

f Good, with man during regeneration, has continually a purpose 
of inverting the state, and of reducing it into such an order that 
truth may not be in the prior place, but in the posterior, as is agree- 
able to the state of heaven: this purpose, however, lies deeply con- 
cealed, nor is it perceived until it is effected. The case herein is as 
with conjugial love, which does not appear in infancy and childhood, 
but still lies treasured up, nor does it come forth until all and single 
things are so arranged that it can manifest itself ; in the mean time 
it produces all means suitable to itself, or they are produced. — A. C. 
3610. 



SPIRITUAL TOEREXTS. 51 

paradise;* 1 ' for what it experiences within being infi- 
nitely sweeter than all the pleasures of earth, it leaves 
them without regret, and would leave the whole world 
to enjoy, for one moment, in its inmost, what it expe- 
riences. 

The soul, then, perceives that its prayer becomes 
almost uninterrupted. Its love increases from day to 
day, becoming so ardent that the soul cannot contain 
it. Its senses are so much concentred, and a state of 
recollection so takes entire possession of it, that every 
thing drops from the hands. It would fain love per- 
petually, and meet with no interruption. 

15. And as the soul, in this state, is not strong 
enough not to be dissipated by conversations, it shuns 
and fears them. It would be always in solitude, and 
be always enjoying the embraces of its well-beloved. 
It has within itself a Director who does not suffer it 
to take pleasure in any thing, nor to commit a fault 
without reproving it, and making it sensible, by His 
coldness, how much the fault displeases Him.f 

* After man, by the opening of his internal, is introduced into 
heaven, and receives light from thence, then the same affections which 
the angels of heaven enjoy, together with their pleasantnesses and 
delights, are communicated to him. — A. E. 942. 

f " And all the churches shall know that I am He that searcheth 
the reins and hearts," Rev. ii. 23. That hereby is signified the ac- 
knowledgment of all who are in the church, that the Lord alone 
knows and explores the exteriors and interiors, and the things pertain- 
ing to faith and love, appears from the signification of searching, when 
predicated of the Lord, as denoting that He alone knows and explores ; 
and from the signification of the reins, as denoting the truths of faith, 
and their purification from falsities, concerning which we shall speak 
in what follows ; and from the signification of hearts as denoting the 
goods of love. — A. E. 167. 



52 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

These coldnesses of God, by reason of faults, are 
penances more dreadful to the soul than the heaviest 
chastisements. It is reproved for an idle look -and a 
hasty word.* It seems as if God had no other care 
than to correct and reprove this soul, and that He 
applies Himself only to accomplish its perfection. It 
is astonished itself, and others also, to see that it has 
changed more in one month, — yea, even in a day, 
by this way, than in several years by the other. O 
God ! it belongs to Thee alone to amend and purify 
the soul. 

The soul is taught concerning all kinds of mortifi- 
cations, without having ever heard them spoken of. 
If it is about to eat any thing gratifying to the taste, 
it is held back as by an invisible hand : if it goes into 
a garden, it can see nothing there, — it cannot even 
hold a flower, or look at it. It seems as if God had 
placed sentinels over all its senses. It dares not listen 
to a piece of news. It can apply to itself now those 
words of Scripture, that it is " surrounded with hedges 
and thorns," Hosea ii. 6 ; for, if it would indulge 
itself in any liberties, it feels itself pierced to the 
quick. 

* " Take heed of His face," Ex. xxiii. 21. That it signifies holy 
fear, appears from the signification of taking heed to a face, when it 
is said concerning the Lord, who is here meant by an angel, as denot- 
ing to fear, lest He be angry on account of evils, or lest He be embit- 
tered on account of prevarications. — A. C. 9306. 

" Lest thou embitter Him." That it signifies aversion from Him 
by falses derived from evil, appears from the signification of embit- 
tering, or inciting anger, when concerning the Lord, who, in this case, 
is the angel, as denoting to avert by falses derived from evil ; for falses 
derived from evils are aversions from the Lord. — A. C. 9308. 






SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 53 

It would fain then, especially in the beginning, con- 
sume itself with austerities. It seems as if it no longer 
held at all to earth, so much does it feel itself detached 
therefrom. Its words are nothing but fire and flames. 

God has still another way of punishing this soiil, 
after it is somewhat more advanced, which is, by mak- 
ing Himself felt more strongly after its fall. Then 
the poor soul is swallowed up in confusion. It would 
prefer the severest chastisement to this loving-kindness 
of God, following upon its fall, which makes it ready 
to die, and to be swallowed up with shame. 

16. The soul is then so full of what it feels, that it 
would fain impart it to all the world. It would teach 
every one to love God. Its feelings towards Him are 
so lively, so pure, so remote from interest, that those 
directors, who, without being themselves experienced 
in these ways, should hear it speak, would believe it 
had reached the height of perfection. It is fertile in 
beautiful thoughts, which it commits to writing with 
admirable facility, and which are deep, lively, and inti- 
mate feelings ; there being now no more reasonings, 
nothing but the strongest and most ardent love. The 
soul during the day feels itself seized and occupied by 
a divine force, which ravishes and consumes it, and 
holds it night and day without its knowing what it 
does. The eyes close of themselves, and can scarcely be 
opened. It would fain be blind, deaf, and dumb, that 
nothing might hinder its enjoyment. It is like those 
intoxicated persons who are so occupied and possessed 
with wine that they know not what they do, and are 
no longer their own masters. If these persons wish 



54 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

to read, the book falls from their hands ; a single line 
is enough for them, and they can scarcely read a page 
in a whole day, whatever industry they may use for 
the purpose. It is not that they understand what 
they read, for they do not think upon it ; but it is 
that one word of God, or the approach of a book, 
awakens the secret instinct w T hich animates and in- 
flames them, so that love closes both their lips and 
their eyes. 

17. For this reason it is that they cannot make use 
of vocal prayers, not being able to pronounce them. 
A pater would keep them an hour. A poor soul not 
used to this knows not what ails it ; for, having never 
seen or heard of the like, it knows not why it can- 
not pray. Nevertheless, it cannot resist one more 
mighty than itself, who carries it away. It cannot 
fear to do amiss, nor feels any concern of this kind ; 
for He who holds it thus bound does not allow it to 
doubt that it is Himself who does it, nor to defend 
itself; for, if it should seek to exert itself for prayer, 
it feels that He who occupies it closes its mouth, and 
compels it by a sweet and lovely violence to keep 
silence. 

This does not mean that the creature cannot resist, 
so as to speak by effort ; but that, besides doing itself 
great violence hereby, it loses that heavenly peace, and 
feels sensibly that a spiritual dryness supervenes. It 
is requisite, therefore, that the soul should suffer itself 
to be moved at the divine option, and not after its own 
way ; and if one then has a director who has no expe- 
rience in these matters, and who insists upon vocal 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 55 

prayer, besides inflicting on the soul great constraint, 
he does it an irreparable mischief. 

18. The soul at this time experiences a desire of 
suffering so vehement, that it causes it to languish and 
die. It would fain make amends for the sins of every 
one, and satisfy God. It now begins to find it impos- 
sible to gain indulgences, and love does not allow it 
any desire to shorten its sufferings. 

19. The soul in this state believes that it is in inte- 
rior silence, because its operation is so sweet, so easy, 
and so tranquil, that it no longer perceives it. It 
believes itself to have reached the summit of perfection, 
and sees nothing more to be done than to enjoy the 
good of which it is possessed. This degree lasts for 
a long time, and goes on gradually increasing ; and, 
very often, there are souls who do not get beyond it 
but are in it all their lives, who yet come to be saints 
and the admiration of all mankind. 

The soul, in this degree, has certain transitory and 
short drynesses, which do not take it out of its degree, 
but which serve to advance it. 

20. These souls, however, so ardent and so desirous 
of God, begin to rest in this state, and insensibly to 
lose their loving activity in running after God, content- 
ing themselves with their enjoyment, which they believe 
to be God Himself. This resting and ceasing from 
their course would be an irreparable misfortune to 
them, if God, from His infinite love, did not withdraw 
them as speedily as possible from this state, and intro- 
duce them into the one next to be described. 

But, before speaking of this, it will be well to say 
something about the imperfections of this degree. 



56 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS, 



CHAPTER V. 



1 — 3. Imperfections of this first degree, as well interior as in relation to the 
exterior. 4. A mistake often made in it. 5. Mark of passiveness in this 
state. 6 — 10. Imperfections and mistakes of this degree continued. 11 — 
14. Spiritual counsel. 15 — 19. Spiritual drynesses intermingled with a 
tender but interested loye, which requires the trials and purifications of 
the succeding degree. 



The soul, while in the degree I have just spoken 
of, can advance greatly in it, and does so, going from 
love to love, and from cross to cross ; but it falls so 
often, and is so proprietary, that it may be said to 
go only at a tortoise pace, though it appears to itself 
and to others to run with unbounded speed. The tor- 
rent is here in a level country, and has not yet reached 
the declivity of the mountain, where it is to throw 
itself down and take a course destined no more to be 
checked. 

2. The faults of the soul in this degree * are a certain 
esteem of itself, more hidden and more deeply rooted 
than it was before receiving these graces and favors from 

* The spiritual church is such that it must be introduced by truth 
into good, and then be without perception of good, unless according to 
the quantity and quality which lies concealed in the affection of truth, 
at which time it cannot be distinguished from the delight of self-love 
and the love of the world, which is together in that affection, and is 
believed to be good. — A. C. 3325. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 57 

God,*' — a certain secret undervaluing and contempt of 
others, whom it sees so far distant from its own way,f — 
a proneness to be scandalized by their faults, and a cer- 
tain hardness towards sins a*nd sinners, — a zeal like 
that of St. John before the coming of the Holy Spirit, 
who would have called down fire out of heaven upon 
the Samaritans, that they might be consumed, J — a 
certain confidence in its own salvation and its own 
virtue, so that it seems to itself incapable of sinning, 
— a secret pride, especially at first, so that it is trou- 
bled at faults committed openly. It would fain be 
impeccable : it maintains a collected or reserved bear- 
ing, perceptible to others : it claims to itself the gifts 
of God, and deals with them as if they were its own.§ 

* The spiritual, inasmuch as they have not perception like the 
celestial, do not know that divine truth becomes rational truth with 
man when he is regenerated. They say, indeed, that all good and 
all truth is from the Lord ; but still, when these exist in their rational, . 
they suppose them to be their own, and thus as it were from them- 
selves ; so they cannot be separated from their own proprium, which 
wills this. — A. C. 3394. 

t When he [the spiritual man] has done any thing good, it is the 
delight of his life to make mention of it, and thus to prefer himself 
to others. —A. C. 2715. 

X For truth without good is altogether stiff, and when it Respects 
good as an end, that stiffness begins to soften ; but good is in itself 
soft, and the truth which is insinuated, inasmuch as it becomes good 
there, also grows soft. — A. C. 7068. 

§ Such is the first state of all who are reformed and become spir- 
itual, viz. that they do not believe they are reformed of the Lord, but 
of themselves; that is, that every thing of the will of good and the 
thought of truth is from themselves: in this state, also, they are suf- 
fered of the Lord to remain for a time, because otherwise they could 
not be reformed. — A. C. 2946. 
5 



58 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

It forgets its own weakness and poverty in the expe- 
rience it has of its own strength ; so that it loses 
distrust of itself, and is not afraid to expose itself to 
occasions of sin. 

Although all these faults, and many others, are to 
be found in persons of this degree, they do not know 
them,*' and it even appears as if they had more humility 
than others, because their humility is more guarded.f 
But wait only, and these faults will give themselves, 
in due time, to be both seen and felt. J 

3. The grace they feel so strongly within being to 
them a testimony that they have nothing to fear, they 
speak rashly without a divine mission. They would 
fain communicate what they feel to all the world. 
Hereby they do some good, it is true, to others ; for 
their words, all fire and flames, kindle the hearts of 
those who listen to them ; but besides that they do 
not accomplish the good they would do if they were 
in that degree in which the divine order disposes the 

* The same appears also from this, that the spiritual man does not 
know what is evil; he scarce believes any thing to be evil but what 
is contrary to the commandments of the decalogue, being ignorant 
of the evils of affection and thought, which are innumerable, and 
neither reflecting on them, nor calling them evils. — A. C. 2715. 

■f That to bend themselves denotes exterior humiliation, and is 
of those who are in truth, and that to bow themselves denotes inte- 
rior humiliation, and is of those who are in good, see n. 5682. — 
A.C. 7068. 

^ It is to be observed, that man cannot be purified from evils, and 
thence from falsities, unless the unclean things that are in him emerge 
even into the thought, and are there seen, acknowledged, discerned, 
and rejected. — A. E. 580. 

For the evils and falses which he had before imbibed, emerge and 
come forth and disturb him. — A. C. 3696. 






SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 59 

soul to communicate what it has, their graces being 
not yet in their fulness, they give of their penury 
instead of giving only of their abundance, in conse- 
quence of which they grow dry themselves. If you 
have seen several basins of water underneath a foun- 
tain, the fountain alone giving of its fulness, and the 
others dispensing, the one into the other, only from the 
fulness which the source communicates to them, you 
can understand how, if the source is stopped up or di- 
verted while the basins still continue to flow, they will 
be certain, having no longer any source, to be exhaust- 
ed and dried up. The like happens to souls of this 
degree : they wish to be sending abroad their waters 
continually, not perceiving, until late, that the water 
they have is only for themselves, and that they are 
not in a degree suited for communication, because they 
are not sources themselves. They are like bottles of 
precious perfume left to exhale themselves, whose fra- 
grance is so delightful that we do not take notice how 
rapidly they waste away. 

4. It is easy, in this degree, to be deceived by tak- 
ing the means for the end ;* and as it lasts very long 

* There are things essential, and there are things instrumental. 
In order that what is essential may produce an effect, it must have 
what is instrumental, as a means whereby to act; and as the instru- 
mental is formed, so it acts. By instrumentals not being matters of 
concern, is meant that they should not be regarded as an end, but 
essentials; for so far as instrumentals are regarded as an end, so far 
essentials withdraw themselves and vanish. Thus if the scientific be 
regarded as an end, and truths are of no concern, the truths at length 
so vanish away that it cannot be apperceived whether they are truths: 
also, if truths are regarded as an end, and good is of no concern, good 
at length so vanishes away as not to be. — A. C. 5948. 



60 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

with some souls, and there are even some that do not 
get beyond it, it is common to take this state, espe- 
cially towards its conclusion, for a state of perfection. 
But this is a great mistake. There is a considerable 
resemblance to it, it is true ; and, unless the director 
has passed through all the states, he will easily believe 
that the soul has reached the highest point, when it is 
really very far distant from it. What serves the more 
readily to persuade him, is the fact that the soul prac- 
tises all the virtues with an admirable strength. It 
easily overcomes itself, and finds nothing hard, " be- 
cause love is strong as death," Cant. iii. 6. 

5. It must also be observed, that the virtues appear 
to have come into the heart without any trouble ;* for 
the soul of which I am speaking does not think upon 
them, since it is altogether taken up with a general 
love, without motive or reason for loving. If you ask 
it what it does in prayer and during the day, it will 
tell you that it loves. But what motive or what rea- 

* " And they filled their vessels with corn " [Gen. xlii. 25]. That 
it signifies scientifics, that they were gifted with good from truth, ap- 
pears from the signification of filling, because gratis, as denoting to be 
gifted; and from the signification of vessels as being scientifics, and 
from the signification of corn as being good from truth, or the good of 
truth.— A. C. 5295. 

« To bring back their silver " [Ibid]. That it signifies without any 
ability of theirs, appears from the signification of buying with silver, 
as being to procure from one's self for one's own: here, therefore, to 
bring back silver is to give gratis, or without any ability of theirs 
[or, what is the same, that nothing of aid was from them. — A. C. 
5499]: as also in Isaiah, " Every one that thirsteth, go ye to the wa- 
ters; and he who hath no silver, go ye, buy and eat, and go ye, buy, 
without silver and without price, wine and milk;" lv. 1. — 5296. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 61 

son have you for loving ? Of this it knows nothing. 
All that it knows is, that it loves, and that it burns 
to suffer for what it loves. But perhaps it is the sight 
of what your Well-beloved has undergone, O soul ! 
which thus moves in you a willingness to suffer ? — 
Alas ! it will say, they do not come into my thoughts. 
— Is it then a desire to imitate the virtues you see in 
Him ? — About this I do not think. — What, then, is it 
you do ? — I love. — Is it the view you have of the 
beauty of Him who loves you that carries away your 
heart 1 — I do not look at this beauty. — How is it 
with you, then ? — I do not know : I only feel in the 
inmost recesses of my heart a deep wound; a wound 
so delightful, that I repose in my trouble, and find 
pleasure in my smart. * 

6. The soul now believes that it has gained and 
finished all; for, though it is full of the defects I 
have just mentioned, and a whole host of others 
exceedingly dangerous, which are better felt in the 
following degree than they can then be expressed, it 
rests in the perfection it thinks it has acquired ; and, 
stopping at the means, because it takes them for the 
end, it would always remain attached to them, if God 
did not lead this torrent (which is like a peaceful 
lake on the summit of a mountain) to the declivity of 

* I have experienced, as also on several other occasions, though 
without reflection, that affections can act and be varied, to effect, 
without ideas of thought: thus, that there are indefinite states of 
affections, with their varieties and successions (which are the principles 
of thoughts, although the man cannot perceive those thoughts), with- 
out ideas of thought ; from which may be inferred that celestial states 
are such from which come spiritual things. — S. D. 3127. 



62 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

the mountain, that it might cast itself down, and take 
a course the more rapid in proportion to the depth of 
its fall * 

7. It seems to me that the soul in this first degree, 
even with the most advanced, has a certain habit of 
concealing its defects both from itself and from others. 
It invents excuses and pretexts ; it never speaks 
them out ingenuously, not by design, but from a cer- 
tain love of its own excellence, and from a certain 
habitual dissimulation under which it conceals itself, f 
It has not so much peace [as afterwards] in its mis- 
eries : J on the contrary, it finds itself wonderfully 
cast down. It has a certain eagerness to be purified 
from them, which it speaks about to others. § The 
faults which are most visible to others are those 

* Nearly similar to this is the case with the new life of a regene- 
rate man. In the beginning he is in a state of tranquillity ; but as he 
passes into a new life, he also passes at the same time into an untran- 
quil state. — A.C. 3696. 

f Man is accustomed from infancy to make a show of friendship, 
of benevolence, and of sincerity, and to conceal the thoughts of his 
own proper will: hence from habit he contracts a moral and civil life 
in externals, whatever he may be in internals. The effect of this 
habit is, that man scarcely knows his interiors, and also that he does 
not attend to them. — H. H. 492. 

X Peace is the inmost in every delight, even in what is undelight- 
ful with the man who is in good. — A. C. 8455. 

§ " Let not any one make a residue of it until morning M [Ex. 
xvi. 19]. That it signifies that they should not be so solicitous about 
acquiring it of themselves, appears from this, that the manna was 
given every morning, and that worms were born in the residue ; by 
which is signified that the Lord daily provides necessaries, and that 
thus they ought not to be solicitous about acquiring them of them- 
selves. — A. C. 8478. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 63 

which cause it most pain. It has a sensible taste and 
relish of the gifts of God. It has a secret love of 
itself stronger than ever ; a high esteem of its extra- 
ordinary way ; a secret desire to attract notice ; a 
certain composed bearing in the exterior ; a con- 
strained and affected modesty. It is beset by a 
swarm of self-reflections, when it falls into some 
visible fault ; it is too ready to judge of others ; .and, 
along with all these faults, it has a thousand proprie- 
tary attachments to its devotions ; and, preferring 
prayer to the duties of the family, it is the cause of a 
thousand sins committed by those among whom it 
resides.* 

8. This is a matter of the highest importance ; for 
the soul, feeling itself drawn in a manner so sweet 
and so strong, would fain be always alone and in 
prayer, and it prays more than comports with its 
state either exterior or interior. Its exterior faults 
give rise to a thousand reports, lead to a thousand 
faults, and cause a neglect of essential obligations ; 
its interior ones, by degrees, exhaust the strength of 
the soul and its power of loving, and cause it times of 
spiritual dryness, which, not being of the divine order, 
hurt it instead of doing it any good. 

9. Two unhappy consequences result from this. 

* With man about to be regenerated the case is thus, that his 
first affection of truth is very impure ; for there is in it an affection of 
use and of end for the sake of himself, for the sake of the world, for 
the sake of glory in heaven, and the like things, which look towards 
himself, but not towards the community, the Lord's kingdom, and 
still less towards the Lord. Such an affection must needs precede:, 
nevertheless, it is successively purified of the Lord. — A. C. 3089.. 



64 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

The first is, that the soul desires too much to be in 
prayer and solitude, when it has a facility therefor ; 
the second is, that when it has thereby exhausted its 
loving power, inasmuch as this is by its own fault, it 
has not the same strength in the dryness which super- 
venes ; it finds it difficult to continue so long in 
prayer, and is very 'apt to shorten the time assigned 
thereto ; it seeks amusement, at times, in exterior 
objects;** it falls into dejection, discouragement, dis- 
tress, believing that it has lost all, and does all it 
can to bring back again the presence and the love 
of God. 

10. But if it were sufficiently strong to hold an 
equal course, and not to do more in abundance than in 
dryness, it would meet all demands. It is uncomply- 
ing towards the neighbor, towards whom it practises 
no complaisance, thinking it a great matter to relax a 
little to please him. It feels a certain severity and 
observes an austere silence where they are out of 
place ; whereas, on other occasions, it is apt to talk 
on without end concerning, the things of God. A 
woman will have scruples about complying with her 
husband's wishes, about conversing with him, about 

* The good of truth or spiritual good is given indeed to the man 
of the spiritual church ; but whereas every delight of the love of self 
and of the world, which had before constituted their life, extinguishes 
that good, inasmuch as they are opposite, therefore the pure good of 
truth cannot long abide with that man, but is tempered from the 
Lord by the delights of the loves which had before been of his life: 
for, unless that good was so tempered, it would become undelightful 
to him, and would thus be loathsome. Such is celestial good at first 
with those who are regenerating. — A. C. 8487. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 65 

walking or partaking of some amusement with him ; 
but will have none whatever about talking two whole 
hours, unnecessarily, with devotees of one or the 
other sex. This is a dreadful mistake. We ought to 
discharge our duties, of whatever nature they may be, 
and whatever trouble it may cause us, even though 
we may think ourselves guilty of some faults in the 
way of doing them.* By this course we shall reap 
vastly more spiritual profit, not in the way we ex- 
pect, but because it makes us die to ourselves. It 
seems even as if our Lord gave us to understand that 
this was pleasing to Him, by the grace He com- 
municates to us in thus doing. I knew a person, who, 
in playing cards to oblige her husband, experienced a 
stronger and more intimate union than she ever ex- 
perienced in prayer ; and this was a thing of com- 
mon occurrence in all she did to gratify the wishes of 
her husband, notwithstanding the repugnance she 
might feel for it ; and if she failed in this point, in 
order, as she thought, to do better, she felt distinctly 
that she was leaving her proper estate and the order 
of God. This did not prevent the person I am speak- 
ing of from often committing such faults, because the 
attraction to an interior state and the excellence of 

* By the worship of God at this day is meant principally the 
worship of the mouth in a temple, both morning and evening. But 
the worship of God does not consist essentially in this, but in a life of 
uses: this worship is according to the order of Heaven. The worship 
of the mouth is also worship, but it is altogether of no avail, unless 
there be worship of the life; for this latter worship is of the heart, 
and the former, that it may become worship, must proceed from this 
latter. — A. C. 7884. 



66 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

prayer, which are preferred to this apparent waste of 
time, insensibly carry the soul away, and put it on 
a wrong track. And this appears as sanctity in the 
greater number. 

11. Still, however, souls destined for faith do not 
commit these errors for a long time or frequently. 
God desires to lead them in His divine order,* and 
He therefore causes them to feel wherein they come 
short. And the difference between a soul destined 
for faith, and another, is, that the latter continues in 
these devotions without difficulty ; it is like tearing 
out his heart to withdraw him from this tranquil love : 
but the other has no peace even in peace itself, until 
he has satisfied his duty ; and when he does continue 
in this peaceful state, notwithstanding the instinct to 
leave it, it is an unfaithfulness which is sure to cause 
him inward pain. 

12. It happens also that the soul, by means of this 
death and this contrariety, feels ijtself still more 
strongly attached or attracted to its interior repose. 
For it is peculiar to man to long more strongly for a 
thing in proportion as it is more difficult for him to 
enjoy it (at least, if he has some little firmness) ; and 
to become fixed in his desires by opposition, willing 



* By living according to order is here meant to be led of the Lord 
by good, but to live not as yet according to order is to be led by 
truth; and when man is led by truth, the Lord does not appear; 
wherefore also man then goes in darkness, in which he does not see 
good; it is otherwise when man is led by good, then he sees in the 
light. — A. C. 8572. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 67 

yet more strongly that which is denied him.* This 
trouble of not being able to have repose except by 
halves, increases the repose of the soul, and causes 
that, even in action, it feels itself drawn so strongly, 
that it seems as if there were within it two souls and 
two conversations at one and the same time, and as 
if the more interior of them were vastly stronger than 
the exterior. f But if the soul would quit the duties 
incumbent on it for prayer, it no longer finds any 
thing, and its attraction perishes J 

13. I do not mean prayer which is of obligation, 
and which we have prescribed to ourselves as matter 

* The end of refusal, when any one accepts, is sometimes that 
affection may be insinuated; it is thence also increased, and thus 
passes from thinking well into willing well. Man is led by the Lord 
in spiritual life by things nearly similar to those by which man leads 
others in civil life : it is a customary thing in civil life to refuse, to 
the end that the favor may be done from affection, thus not only from 
thinking, but also from willing. — A. C. 4366. 

f By Adam and his wife is understood the most ancient church, 
which was a celestial church. Spiritual things with them were alto- 
gether distinct from natural things; the former residing in their 
spiritual mind, and the latter in their natural mind; and hence they 
did not immerse any thing spiritual in their natural mind, as is the 
case with men who are spiritual-natural. — A. C. 617. 

£ With respect to use, the case is this, that they who are in charity 
that is, in love towards their neighbor, from which love is delight in 
pleasures, which is living delight, do not regard the enjoyment of 
pleasures except for the sake of use; for charity is no charity unless 
there be works of charity, inasmuch as charity consists in exercise or 
use. He who loves his neighbor as himself never perceives the delight 
of charity except in the exercise thereof, or in use ; wherefore a life of 
charity is a life of uses : therefore every pleasure which is from charity 
receives its delight from use. — A. C. 997. 



68 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

of duty ; for in this we should not fail, except for 
reasons beyond our control. But I speak of a prayer 
we would fain make perpetual, where we feel our- 
selves carried away by a secret force drawing us 
within ourselves. Neither by action do I mean 
that which is at our own option, but that of absolute 
duty. For if a person has time, after meeting all 
the duties incumbent on him, let him give it to 
prayer; let him bestow on it, indeed, all the time 
he can. In this case it will be of unbounded service 
to him. We must take care also, not, under pretence 
of obligation, to impose upon ourselves non-necessary 
actions. Love for one's husband, for our children, 
for the care of the household, can easily insinuate 
itself under cover of what is necessary ; so also a 
natural eagerness to finish a thing once begun. But 
all this will easily be discovered by a soul not inclined 
to flatter itself. This is not so dangerous [a mistake 
as the other], 

14. When the state of recollection is very deep, the 
soul does not usually fall into the faults last men- 
tioned ; but it does into those already mentioned, 
of undue seclusion. When the state of dryness 
begins, it is more to be feared that the person will 
over-burden himself with occupations, by reason of 
the pain which the senses experience in remaining 
long in prayer. But one must be firm here, and 
be as exact as in the time of recollection. I knew 
a person who prayed most when prayer was most 
painful, hardening herself against the pain itself. 






SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 69 

But this is hurtful to the health, because of the 
violent effort required for it, and the pain inflicted on 
the senses and the understanding, which, not being 
able to fix on any object, and being deprived of the 
sweet correspondence which formerly kept it near to 
God, suffers, in consequence, such dreadful torments, 
that the soul would rather undergo the greatest 
austerities than the violence it must make use of in 
order to remain with God without sensible support.* 
In this case the pain is intolerable, and nature is put 
by it, as it were, in a rage.f The person of whom I 
speak used to pass, at times, two and three hours in 
succession in this painful species of prayer ; and, as 
God had given her great courage, she suffered herself 
to be devoured by her pain, although she felt her 
senses to be in a rage. She has confessed to me, that 
the most extraordinary austerities would have appear- 
ed a pastime to her, compared with a continuance 
in this state. Sometimes she actually resorted to 
austerities for relief, which was no small unfaithful- 
ness. But, as the use of so much violence with persons 

* To humble one's self is expressed in the original tongue by a 
word which signifies to aftiict; and for a person to afilict himself, 
means, in the internal sense, to compel himself, as may appear from 
very many passages in the Word. Alan's celestial proprium is 
formed in the effort of his thought; and if he does not obtain it by 
compelling himself, as it appears, he will never obtain it by not com- 
pelling himself. — A. C. 1937. 

t "And she called his name Naphtali " [Gen. xxx. 8]. That 
this signifies the quality thereof, namely, of the temptation in which 
man overcomes, and also of the resistance which arises from the 
natural man, appears from the signification of name, and of calling 
a name, being quality. See n. 144, <fec. — A. C. 3928. 



70 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

so feeble might destroy the health of mind and body, 
I think it better neither to diminish nor to increase 
prayer on account of changes in the state of the 
feelings. 

15. The states of dryness, so painful and distressing, 
of which I have just spoken, which pass among certain 
spiritual persons not much enlightened for terrible 
states, and the severest trials from God, belong only 
to this first degree of faith, and are often caused by 
exhaustion.* Nevertheless, souls who have gone 
through them believe that they are dead, and write 
and speak of them, as of the most painful passage of 
the spiritual life.f It is true they have no experience 
of the contrary ; and very often the soul has not 
courage to go on, though this is so small a matter. 
For, in these pains, which are like a burning fire, the 
soul is left to them by God, who withdraws from it 
His sensible aid ; J but still it is the senses which 
cause them ; because, being accustomed to act, to see, 
to feel, and to taste, and having never experienced 
the like privations, and finding no place beside where 

* It is the delights of his [the spiritual man's] life to be instructed 
in truths, and to be illustrated in such things as relate to his soul, 
thus to his spiritual life; wherefore, when those things fail, his spi- 
ritual life labors and suffers, whence come grief and anxiety. — 
A.C. 8352. 

■f They who have not been instructed concerning the regeneration 
of man, suppose that man can be regenerated without temptation, and 
some that he is regenerated when he has undergone one temptation; 
but it is to be known that without temptation no one is regenerated, 
and that several temptations succeed one after another. — A. C. 8403. 

^ In temptations the Lord appears as absent. — A. E. 700. 



SPIRITUAL TOEE.ENTS. 71 

they can be nourished,* they are reduced to a fright- 
ful state of despair, f 

The soul is far from not being, on these occasions, 
in a state of vigor ; J it remains firm, if it has some 
degree of courage. Its pain is glorious to it, neither 
is it of long duration ; for the strength of the soul at 
this time is not such that it can sustain such a burden 
very long. It would turn backward to seek for 
nourishment, or else it would give over altogether. 

16. For this reason, our Lord does not long delay 
to return : He returns sometimes before even the 
prayer is finished. And if he does not return at the 
conclusion of the prayer, He does so during the day 
in a still stronger manner. § It appears as if he re- 

* When the good of charity is to be insinuated which makes spiri- 
tual life, then the delight of pleasures is removed, which had made 
natural life. When this delight is removed, then man comes into 
temptation; for he believes, if he be deprived of the delight of plea- 
sures, that he is deprived of all life ; for his natural life consists in that 
delight or good, as he calls it. — A. C. 8413. 

t Spiritual temptations are commonly brought to despair. — 
A.C. 8351. 

X Where man is in temptations, which are combats against evils 
and falses, the Lord flows in from the interior, and fights for him; 
which also man may know from this, that when he is in temptations 
he interiorly resists; for, unless he interiorly resisted, he would not 
conquer, but would yield. This interior resistance at the time does 
not come to the apperception of man, because when he is in temptations 
he is in obscurity from the evil and falses of evil which assault; but 
after temptations, with those who are in the perception of truth. — 
A.C. 10,686. 

§ After every spiritual temptation come illustration and affection, 
thus pleasantness and delight; pleasantness from illustration by truth, 
and delight from the affection of good. — A. C. 8367. 



72 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

pented of having caused suffering to trie soul He loves 
so well, or that He desired to recompense with usury 
what it had endured for His sake. If the absence 
continues for some days, the pains are such that they 
are intolerable. It calls Him merciful and cruel. It 
asks of Him if He has wounded it only that He may 
slay it. But this amiable lover smiles at its pain, 
and returns to put on its wound a balm so sweet that 
it would always be feeling new wounds, that it might 
always enjoy the delight of a healing which restores 
to it, not only its first health, but a health yet more 
abundant.*' 

Hitherto we have seen nothing but the mere sports 
of love, to which the soul would easily become accus- 
tomed if its Friend did not change His course. Poor 
souls, who complain of the inconstancies of love, you 
know not that they are only feints, slight foretastes 
and specimens of what is to follow. The hours of 
absence seem to you days, weeks, months, and years. 
You are to learn, at your own cost, to become more 

* That these are words of despair [" Were there no sepulchres in 
Egypt 1 Thou hast taken us to die in the wilderness," Ex. xiv. 11] is 
evident. With those who are in despair, which is the last state of 
temptation, such things also are thought, and then they are as it 
were on a declivity, or as it were in the lapse to hell; but such 
thought there is not at all hurtful, neither is it attended to by the 
angels, for every man has a limited power; and when the temptation 
comes even to the last limit of his power, then man endures no further, 
but lapses. Then, however, that is, when he is in the inclination to 
lapse, he is elevated by the Lord, and thus liberated from despair. In 
this case, for the most part, he is brought into a state of hope, and 
thence into a clear state of consolation, and also into a state of satis- 
faction. — A. C. 8165. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 73 

generous, and to let your Spouse go and return with- 
out saying any thing to Him. I seem to myself to see 
these young brides. They are in the deepest grief, 
when their husband leaves them for ever so short a 
time. They bewail three days of absence as if He 
were dead, and they fight as much as they can against 
letting Him go. This love appears strong and great, 
yet it is by no means so. It is the pleasure they 
enjoy in seeing their spouse that they weep for. It is 
their own satisfaction that they seek. For if it were 
the pleasure of their husband, they would be as well 
pleased with the pleasure which He finds apart from 
them, in walking, in hunting, or otherwise, as with 
that which He enjoys with themselves. It is, there- 
fore, an interested love, although it does not appear 
such to the soul ; which, on the contrary, believes 
that it loves Him only because He is worthy to be 
loved. It is true, poor souls, that you love Him 
because He is lovely ; but you love also for the plea- 
sure which you find in this exercise of loving.*' 

18. Nevertheless, you are willing, you say, to suffer 
for Him who is your Friend. It is true you are, pro- 
vided He is the witness and companion of your 
suffering. You wish no reward for it, you say. I grant 
you this ; but you would have him know your suffer- 

* Reward serves as a medium of conjunction with those who are not 
yet initiated; for they who are not yet initiated in good and its affec- 
tion, that is, who are not yet fully regenerated, cannot do otherwise 
than think also of reward, because in doing good they do it not from 
the affection of good, but from the affection of somewhat blessed and 
happy in regard to themselves. — A. C. 3816. 
6 



74 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

ing, and accept it, — you would have him gratified 
therewith. Is there, then, any thing, you will ask, 
more natural and right than wishing that He for 
whom we suffer should know it, accept it, and be 
pleased with it ? Oh, how greatly are you mistaken ! 
Jealous love will by no means let you enjoy the plea- 
sure you take in seeing Him pleased with your griefs. 
You must learn to suffer, without His exhibiting any 
sign, either of seeing, of accepting, or of knowing it. 
It is too much for you to be accepted. What pain 
would one not undergo on this condition 1 What ! 
to know that He who loves us sees our pains, and 
has an infinite pleasure in them, — oh ! this is the 
highest of pleasures to a generous heart. Neverthe- 
less, I am convinced that the highest generosity of 
those who belong to the state under consideration 
does not go beyond this limit. 

19. But to suffer without our Lover's knowing it, 
and when he appears to despise and turn away from 
what we do to please Him, and to feel nothing but 
aversion for what seemed to delight Him formerly ; to 
see Him recompense with coldness and dreadful dis- 
tance what we do only to please Him, and yet not 
cease to do it ; to see Him rewarding all our en- 
deavors only with terrible hidings of his face ; to suffer 
ourselves to be stripped, without complaint, of all 
that He had formerly given as pledges of His love, 
and which the soul believed it had payed for by its 
own love, its faithfulness and its sufferings ; not only 
to see ourselves stripped of them without complaining, 
but to see others enriched with our spoils, yet with- 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 75 

out failing to do, as before, all that can please our 
Friend, absent though He be ; not to cease running 
after Him, or if, from unfaithfulness or surprise, we 
stop for a moment, to redouble our speed, without 
fearing or looking at the precipices in our way, though 
we fall and fall again a thousand times, though the soul 
is so covered with mud and so wearied that it loses its 
own proper strength, to die and expire by these con- 
tinual fatigues (or if, at times, its Friend turns round 
and looks at it, He gives it again life and prevents it 
from dying, so much delight does this look afford 
it), until, at length, its divine Friend becomes so 
cruel, that He suffers it to expire for want of help ; — 
all this, I say, belongs not to this stage, but to the 
following one.* 

It must be observed here, that the degree I have just 
spoken of is very long, unless God designs to advance 
the soul very greatly ; and very many, as I have said, 
do not get beyond it. 

* It is to be known that without temptation no one is regenerated, 
and that several temptations succeed one after another. — A. C. 8403. 

Man, who is being regenerated, is at length so far reduced by 
repeated desolations and supports, that he no longer wills to be his 
own, but the Lord's. —A. C. 6138. 

Temptations are continual despairings concerning salvation, in the 
beginning slight, but in process of time grievous, till at last there is 
doubt almost negative concerning the presence of the Divine and His 
aid. The spiritual life is generally brought to this extreme in 
temptations; for so the natural life is extinguished, inasmuch as then 
the inmost, in the midst of despair, is held by the Lord in combat 
against the falses. — A. C. 8567. 



76 SPIRITUAL TORREXTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 



The second degree of the passive way of faith. 1 — 5. A short description of 
this way. 6 — 7. Entrance on this degree, and useless efforts to avoid it. 
8 — 14. Gradations and progresses in this degree, in which occur various 
manifestations of Jesus Christ to the soul. The various uses and abuses 
thereof successively, whereby the soul is forwarded to the mystical death, 
or third degree of this passive way of faith. 



1. The torrent beginning to find the declivity of 
the mountain begins likewise the second degree of the 
passive way of faith* The soul was so peaceful on 
this mountain, and enjoyed there such a state of 
delightful repose, that it had no thought of ever 
falling from it. Nevertheless, for want of declivity 
and descent, these waters of heaven were beginning, 
by the pause they thus made on the earth, to become 
putrid. For there is this difference between waters 
that do not flow nor discharge themselves and those 
that do, that the first, (unless they be the sea, or 
those great lakes which resemble it,) are spoiled, and 
their rest is their ruin. But when, after leaving their 
source, they have a ready issue, the more rapidly they 
run, the more pure they keep. 

2. You will observe (as I have already said of this 

* During the continuance of temptations, on one part are excited 
evils, and the falses of evils ; on the other, goods, and the truths of 
good which appertain to man. Hence he is in a turbulent state. — 
A. C. 10,686. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 77 

soul), that, when God imparted to it the gift of passive 
faith, He gave it also an instinct to hasten towards 
Him as its centre. But unfaithful to this instinct 
(though it believes itself full of fidelity), the soul 
extinguishes it by its repose, and would be inactive 
without advancing, if God did not wake up this 
instinct by causing it to find the declivity of the 
mountain, where it must fall headlong almost in 
spite of itself. It feels itself at once to lose the calm 
which it believed itself in possession of for ever. Its 
tranquil waters begin to murmur ; a tumult begins in 
its waves ; they run and cast themselves headlong 
down. But whither do they run ? Alas ! to their 
own destruction [as it seems]. 

If they could will any thing, they would hold back, 
and return to their former calmness. But this is 
impossible : the declivity has been reached, and they 
must fall from one descent to another. There is as 
yet no consideration about abyss or loss. The water 
(the soul) continues visible, and is not lost in this 
degree. It is agitated, and falls headlong ; wave 
follows wave, and, in the fall, they meet and dash 
against one another. 

3. This water, however, meets with certain level 
spots in the declivity of this mountain, where it takes 
some little relaxation. It is pleased with the clear- 
ness of its own waters, and sees that its falls, its 
courses, and the dashing of its waves against the 
rocks, have served only to make it more pure. It finds 
itself delivered from its loud and stormy period, and 
believes that it has reached already the place of rest, — 



78 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

believes this so much the more readily, because it 
cannot doubt, that the state through which it has just 
passed has served greatly to purify it. For it sees itself 
to be more clear, and no longer perceives the stench 
which certain stagnant places emitted at the top of 
the mountain. It has even acquired a certain propen- 
sity to fall; that is, it has gained a knowledge, in 
some measure, of what itself is. It has been made 
to see, by the trouble of its passions, or rather of its 
waves, that they were not destroyed, but only hushed 
to sleep.* 

4. As, when it was on the declivity of the mountain 
on its way to this last spot, it believed itself on the way 
to destruction, and had no further hope of recovering 
its peace ; so, now, when it no longer hears the sound 
of its own waves, when it sees itself flowing so gently 
and pleasantly over the sand, it forgets its former 
suffering, and believes not that it will ever return ; 
for it sees itself to have acquired more purity, and is 
not afraid of becoming putrid, since it is not absolutely 
at rest here, but flows in the gentlest and pleasantest 
way imaginable.! Poor torrent ! thou thinkest thou 

* The tempted are in interior anxiety, even to desperation, in 
which they are kept more especially, for the end that they may 
finally be confirmed in this, that all things are of the Lord's mercy, 
that they are saved by Him alone, and that in themselves there 
is nothing but evil; in which truths they are confirmed by combats 
wherein they conquer. — A.C. 2334. 

f That not temptations only, but also consolation is signified by 
Schaddai, is because all spiritual temptations are succeeded by con- 
solation, which has been given [me] to know from experience in the 
other life. For when any one there suffers hardships from evil spirits, 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 79 

hast found rest, and hast reached its very abode ! 
Thou art beginning to take pleasure in thy own 
waters ! The creatures gaze at themselves in the 
mirror which these waters make, and think themselves 
most fair. But what is thy surprise, when, in flowing 
along so softly over the sand, thou meetest, all unex- 
pectedly, with a declivity yet steeper, longer, and 
more dangerous than the first 1 * Thus begins again 
the murmuring of the torrent, which was a moderate 
sound at first, but which now becomes insupportable. 
It makes a noise and uproar still greater than before. 
It has now scarcely a bed to run in, but falls from 
rocks to rocks, going headlong without order or rea- 
son. It frightens every one with its noise, and all 
are afraid to approach it. 

5. Poor torrent ! what wilt thou do 1 Thou 
sweepest with thee all that thou encounterest in 
thy mad career : thou feelest only the declivity that 
hurries thee forward, and believest thyself lost. No, 
no, fear not ; thou art not lost, but the period of thy 
happiness is not yet attained. For this, other falls 
and other losses are needful. Thou art only begin- 
ning thy course. 

At length this running torrent feels that it has 
reached again the lower part of the mountain and the 

by infestations, excitations to evil, and persuasions to falses, after- 
wards when the evil spirits are removed, he is received by the angels, 
and is brought into a state of comfort, by delights conformable to his 
genius. — A. C. 5628. 

* Temptations are continual despairings concerning salvation, in 
the beginning slight, but in process of time grievous. — A. C. 8567. 



80 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

level country. It regains its former calmness, and 
even a greater one ; and, after having passed long 
years in these alternations, it enters upon the third 
degree. 

6. After having passed some years in this tranquil 
place, of which, as we have said, it thought to keep 
perpetual possession, — after having acquired the vir- 
tues, as it thought, in all their extent, — the soul, be- 
lieving all its passions to be dead, and thinking yet 
more confidently to enjoy a happiness beyond all fear 
of loss, is all astonished to find, that, instead of going 
higher, or at least maintaining an equal state, it has 
reached, without looking for it, the declivity of the 
mountain. It begins, with astonishment, to expe- 
rience an inclination for the things it had left. It 
sees this delightful calm all at once beginning to be 
disturbed. Distractions come in crowds. They fight 
together and throw each other down. The soul finds 
nothing but stones in its way, nothing but seasons of 
drought and aridity. Disgust comes into its prayers ; 
and its passions, which it believed to be dead, but 
which were only laid asleep, rouse up into life. 

7. It is quite astonished at this change. It would 
either ascend again whence it has fallen, or, at least, 
stop where it is. But this cannot be : it has reached 
the crest of the mountain, and it needs must fall. It 
does its best to recover from its falls ; it does what it 
can to hold back, and stay itself ^n some species of 
devotion. It redoubles its penances. It does its 
best to bring back the delight of its former peace. It 
seeks solitude with the hope of finding it there. But 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 81 

all its labor is in vain. It sees that the fault is its 
own. It resigns itself to suffer the humiliation which 
results from this, and abominates sin. It would fain 
adjust things, but it cannot be done. The torrent 
must take its course, and sweep along all that stands 
in its way. 

The soul, seeing that it finds no further support in 
God, goes about to see if it can find it in the crea- 
ture ; but it finds none whatever, and this its unfaith- 
fulness serves only to frighten it yet more. 

8. At length, the poor soul, not knowing what to 
do, everywhere lamenting the loss of its Well-beloved, 
is all astonished to find that He presents Himself again 
to her. Believing that it had lost Him for ever, it is at 
once enraptured with the view. It esteems itself so 
much the more happy, because it perceives that He 
has brought with Him new blessings, a new purity, a 
greater distrust of itself.* It has no longer a desire, 
as at first, to stop ; it runs incessantly, but quietly, 
gently, fearing again an interruption of its peace. 
It dreads to lose again its treasure, which is the more 
precious to it, because the loss of it was so keenly 
felt. It fears to displease Him, lest He should again 

* When man is in temptations, the goods of love and the truths of 
faith are not then appropriated to him, but afterwards. For, during 
the continuance of temptations, on one part are excited evils and the 
falses of evils : on the other, goods and the truths of good appertaining 
to man: hence he is in a turbulent state. In this state the internal is 
opened ; but, after temptation, he has serenity, and in that state goods 
and the truths of good are brought in by the Lord into the internal 
now open. — A. C. 10,686. 



82 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

withdraw Himself. It endeavors to be more faithful 
to Him, and not to make an end of the means. 

9. Notwithstanding, this repose carries it away, 
ravishes it, and makes it more neglectful. It cannot 
help yielding itself up to its delights, and would fain be 
always alone. It is still actuated by a spiritual avidity 
or intemperance. To drag it forth from solitude and 
prayer is like plucking out its very soul. It is yet 
more proprietary than before, that which it delights 
in being yet more delicate, and its taste having become 
more nice by the pain it has suffered. It appears to 
be in a new repose. 

10. It goes on quietly, when suddenly it meets 
with a new descent more decided and longer than the 
first. It falls, all at once, into a new surprise ; it 
would fain hold back, but in vain ; it must fall, and 
run along the rocks from one to another. It is 
astonished to find that it is losing all relish for prayer 
and worship, and that it requires the greatest self- 
compulsion to continue in it. It finds nothing but 
death at every step. "What formerly gave it life now 
brings it death. 

It no longer feels any peace, but, on the contrary, 
a trouble and agitation deeper than ever, as well in 
regard to the passions, which awake with the more 
strength the more they appeared extinct, as with 
reference to crosses, which are multiplied without, 
whilst the soul finds itself more weak in supporting 
them. It arms itself with patience, it weeps, it 
gnoans, it is cast down ; it complains to its Spouse 
that He has thus abandoned it, but its complaints are 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 83 

not heard.*' The more it is troubled, the more it 
renews its complaints. Every thing becomes death 
to it ; it finds all good difficult, it feels a tendency to 
evil that hurries it away. 

11. Nevertheless it cannot rest in the creature after 
having tasted the Creator. It runs yet more earnestly ; 
and the stronger the rocks and other obstacles that 
oppose its passage, the more bent it is on redoubling 
its course. 

It is like the dove sent forth from the ark, which, 
" not finding any spot of earth on which she could rest 
her foot" [Gen. viii. 9], is compelled to return. But 
alas ! what will this poor dove do when it would 
return to the ark, if the good Noah will not put forth 
his hand to take it again 1 It does nothing but hover 
about the ark, seeking rest, but not able to find it. 
It moans about the ark, until the divine Noah, having 
pity upon her perseverance and her moanings, at 
length opens the door, and receives her with accept- 
ance. 

12. O method altogether admirable and loving of 
the Divine Goodness ! He deals thus with the soul, 
only to make it hasten forward more rapidly. He 
hides Himself that He may be sought for. He flies 
that He may draw the soul after Him.f He lets it 
fall, apparently, that He may have the pleasure of 

* The prayers of those who are in temptations are little heard; 
for the Lord wills the end, which is the salvation of man; which end 
He knows, but not man ; and the Lord does not act for prayers against 
the end, which is salvation. — A. C. 8179. 

f "And they said, Nay" [Ex. xix. 2]. That it signifies doubt 
which usually attends temptation, may appear from the refusal, and 



84 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

sustaining and lifting it up. Thou who art strong 
and vigorous ; who hast never experienced these de- 
vices of love, these apparent jealousies, these avoidings, 
lovely to the soul that has gone through them, but 
terrible to the one that is under them, — thou, I say, 
who knowest nothing of these dealings of the divine 
love, because intoxicated with the continual posses- 
sion of thy Well-beloved — (or, if He hides Himself, it 
is for so short a time that thou canst not judge, from 
long and wearisome absence, of the blessedness of his 
presence) — thou hast never experienced thine own 
weakness, and the need thou hast of His aid. Where- 
as, these poor souls thus left destitute begin to lean 
no longer upon themselves, but only on their Well- 
beloved.* 4 The severities of this Well-beloved have 
made his favors yet more desirable. 

13. These souls often commit faults by reason of 
the weak state to which they are reduced, and because 

that they nevertheless went to his house. Inasmuch as by Lot it is 
here treated concerning the first state of the church, which is in the 
good of charity, but in external worship, and whereas, before man 
comes to this state, he must be reformed, which reformation is effected 
also by a certain species of temptation, but which temptation is very 
light with those who are in external worship ; therefore these circum- 
stances are mentioned, which imply somewhat of temptation, viz. that 
the angels first said, that they would stay all night in the street, and 
that Lot pressed them, and thus that they turned down to him, and 
came to his house. — A. C. 2334. 

* The tempted are in interior anxiety even to desperation, in 
which they are kept more especially for the end that they may finally 
be confirmed in this, that all things are of the Lord's mercy, that 
they are saved by Him alone, and that in themselves there is nothing 
but evil; in which truths they are confirmed by combats in which 
they conquer. — A. C. 2334. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 85 

their senses no longer find any supports. These 
faults make them so much ashamed, that they would 
hide themselves, were this possible, from their Well- 
beloved. Alas ! in the dreadful confusion in which 
they are involved, He shows them His countenance 
for a moment. He reaches out to them His sceptre, 
like king Ahasuerus, that they may not die ; but His 
caresses, so brief and so tender, serve only to increase 
their confusion at having displeased Him. 

At other times he makes them feel by His severities 
how much their unfaithfulness displeases Him. O 
God ! if these souls could be reduced to powder, they 
would gladly be so. They throw themselves into a 
thousand postures to repair the injury they have done 
to God. And if, by some trifling quicknesses of temper 
which they look upon as crimes, they have hurt their 
neighbor, what reparations do they not make for it ? 
They carry this so far, that they believe themselves 
guilty therefor, as if they had done him some great 
wrong, and ask his pardon for it. But it is pitiful to 
see the state of the poor soul, when, by some fault, it 
has been capable of expelling its Well-beloved.* It 
makes use of all endeavors to amend; it does not 

* This latter fear, viz. in which the good are, is called holy fear, 
and is of admiration respecting the divine, and also is of love. Love 
without holy fear is like somewhat unsavory, or like food unseasoned 
with salt, and consequently insipid; but love with fear is like salted 
food, which yet does not taste of salt. The fear of love is, lest in any 
manner the Lord should suffer hurt, or in any manner a neighbor; 
thus lest in any manner good and truth should suffer hurt, conse- 
quently lest should the holy of love and faith, and thence of worship. 
— A.C. 3718. ' 



86 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

cease to run after Him. But the more it runs, the 
more He flies. Or, if He stops, it is only for some 
moments, that it may take breath, and enjoy thereafter 
a little repose. But the more it advances, the more 
the repose becomes brief and delicate. 

14. The poor soul sees well that it must needs die ; 
for it no longer finds life in any thing ; every thing 
becomes to it death and the cross. Prayer, reading, 
conversation, all is death. It no longer has a relish 
for any thing, neither for the practice of the virtues, 
nor for aiding the sick, nor for any thing else which 
constitutes a virtuous life. It loses all this, or rather 
it dies to these things ; doing them with so much pain 
and disrelish, that they become a kind of death to 
it. At length, after having fought long but ineffectu- 
ally,* after a long succession of sorrows and of repose, 
of dyings and livings, it begins to perceive how it 

* The case is similar in the other life with spirits, who by truths 
are initiated into good, and especially into this, that all good and 
truth flows in from the Lord ; and when they apperceive that what- 
ever they think and will flows in, and thus that they cannot think 
and will from themselves, they are then repugnant to the utmost of 
their ability, believing that thus their own proper life would be 
annihilated; and so all delight would perish, for they place delight 
in proprium; and, moreover, if they cannot act what is good from 
themselves, nor believe what is true from themselves, they think that 
they should hang down their heads, doing nothing and thinking noth- 
ing of themselves, and should wait for influx. Thus it is permitted 
them to think, even to such a degree, that they almost conclude with 
themselves that they are not willing thence to receive good and truth, 
but from elsewhere, where there is not such a deprivation of proprium. 
Sometimes also it is given them to inquire where they may find it; 
but afterwards, when they know where to find it, they who are 
regenerating return, and from freedom choose to be led of the Lord as 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 87 

has abused the mercies of God, and how much more 
profitable this state of death is to it than that of life. 
For, when it sees its Well-beloved return, and finds 
that the more it advances the more purely it possesses 
Him, and that the state which precedes enjoyment is 
one of purification, it gives itself up in good earnest 
to death ; * submitting to all the comings and goings 
of its Well-beloved, and giving him full liberty to go 
and come as He will. It perceives then, that the 
endeavor to retain Him would be an act of propriety, 
and involve a fault. It is taught what it is capable 
of. It loses by small degrees its own enjoyment, and 
is thereby prepared for a new state. 

But, before I speak of this, it must be observed, that 
the more the soul advances, the shorter, simpler, and 
purer are its enjoyments ; and the longer, harder, and 
more anguishing are its trials ; and this, until the soul 
has lost all [proprietary] enjoyment, never to find it 
again. f Then comes the third degree, which is called 
loss, burial, putrefaction. The former [the second] 
terminates with death, and goes no further. 

to -willing and thinking : they are also then informed, that they are to 
receive a heavenly proprium such as the angels have, and with this 
proprium likewise blessedness and happiness to eternity. — A. C. 
5660. 

* The privation of the life of truth from itself is not the extinc- 
tion of truth, but is its vivification : for when truth appears to itself 
to have life from itself, then it has not life, except such life as in 
itself is not life ; but when it is deprived of that, it is then gifted with 
real life, viz. by good from the Lord, who is life itself. — A. C. 3607. 

•f When, therefore, the order is to be inverted, then the former 
delight of pleasures expires, and becomes none, and a new [delight] 
from a spiritual origin is insinuated in its place. — A. C. 8413. 



88 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Section I. 

1 — L Third degree of the passive way of faith in its beginnings, and in its 
progress through several particular deaths leading to total death, burial, 
putrefaction, and ashes. 5 — 8. Duration of this transit, in which one 
should neither advance of himself nor go back. 9 — 13. The stripping of 
the soul, and its three kinds. 14 — 19. First degree of this stripping, 
which has relation to gifts and favors, or the ornaments of the soul. Its 
necessity and its effects. 

1. You see these dying persons, when they are 
thought to have breathed their last, all at once recov- 
ering new strength, and so on until they really expire. 
As a lamp, that has exhausted its supply of oil, darts 
up its flame, from time to time, in the midst of its 
obscurity, but only to die the sooner, so the soul 
shoots forth some gleams which last but a few mo- 
ments. At length, it is in vain for it to fight any 
longer against this death. There is no more radical 
moisture in it : the Sun of righteousness has so dried 
it up, that it must of necessity expire. 

2. But what else does this loving Sun aim at with 
His rigorous heats, but to consume the soul ? And 
the poor soul, thus burned up, believes itself all ice, 
because the torment it endures does not allow it to 
perceive the nature of its suffering. As long as the 
Sun was covered with clouds, and gave His rays to be 
felt in a temperate manner, it felt His heat, and 
believed itself all on fire, though it was but slightly 



SPIRITUAL TOBBENTS. 89 

warmed. But when He darts His rays perpendicu- 
larly, it feels itself all burnt and dried up, without 
believing that it is even receiving any warmth. 

3. O gracious deception ! O Love at once gentle 
and cruel ! Hast thou lovers only to deceive them 
thus ? Thou woundest these souls, and then, con- 
cealing Thy dart, makest them run after the author 
of their wound. Thou drawest them after Thee, and 
showest Thyself to them ; and, when they would pos- 
sess Thee, Thou fleest away. When Thou seest the 
soul reduced to extremities, and losing breath by the 
earnestness with which it runs, Thou showest Thyself 
to it for a moment, that it may recover life, but still 
only that it may be made to die a thousand and a 
thousand times more rigorously.* Rigorous Lover ! 
Innocent Destroyer ! Why dost Thou not kill at 
once 1 Wherefore give wine to the expiring soul, 
imparting life to it anew, only to wrest it away again ? 
This, then, is Thy sport. Thou woundest to death ; 
and, when Thou seest the sufferer ready to expire, 

* This state [concealment or receding] is signified in the word by 
evening : when they are in that state, they recede from things celestial 
and spiritual, and recede to such as contain nothing spiritual and 
celestial. But this concealment or receding does not come to pass by 
the Lord's concealing Himself or receding, but by themselves doing 
so ; for they can no longer be withheld from their proprium, because 
it is not expedient. Wherefore this state arrives when they are 
left to themselves or their proprium; and so far as they are thus 
left, or are immersed in the proprium, so far they recede from those 
things which are of heaven, and so far good is unperceivable to them, 
and truth obscure. Hence it is evident, that the Lord does not conceal 
Himself, but that the man, the spirit and the angel, conceals himself. 
— A.C. 5964. 
7 



90 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

Thou healest his wound that Thou mayst inflict new 
ones. Alas ! men die commonly but once, and the 
most cruel tormentors were wont, in persecutions, to 
lengthen out life indeed to the criminal ; but they 
were satisfied when they had destroyed him once. 
But Thou, with less pity, takest life from us a thou- 
sand and a thousand times, and givest it anew. 

4. O life, which we cannot lose without so many 
deaths ! O death, which we cannot have but by the 
loss of so many lives ! Thou wilt come at the end of 
this life. But to what purpose ? Perhaps this soul, 
after it has been swallowed up in thy bosom, will 
enjoy its Well-beloved. It would be but too happy 
if this were so ; but it must undergo another torment. 
It must be buried, undergo putrefaction,* and be 
brought to dust. But, perhaps, it will not suffer any 
more, since bodies that putrefy are past sensation. 
Oh ! it is not so with the soul. It goes on suffering ; 
and burial, putrefaction, and nothingness are vastly 
more painful than death itself, f 

* The first rational is in the beginning like unripe fruit, which 
successively ripens, till the seeds within are deposited in it ; and when 
it is of such an age as to begin to separate itself from the tree, then is 
its state full, concerning which n. 2636. But the other rational 
with which man is gifted of the Lord, when he is regenerated, is like 
the same fruit in good ground, in which there is a decay of those parts 
which encompass the seeds, and the seeds themselves shoot forth from 
their inmosts, and emit a root, and also a stem above ground; which 
stem grows into a new tree, .and unfolds itself, even at length into 
new fruits, and afterwards into gardens and paradises according to 
the affections of good and of truth which are received. See Matt. 
xiii. 3.1, 32 ; John xii. .24. ^- A. C. 2657. 

f In this verse [Gen. xli. 31] it is treated concerning the last state 



■. \ 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 91 

5. This degree of death is exceedingly long, and 
lasts sometimes twenty or thirty years, unless with 
those souls concerning whom God has special de- 
signs. And, as I said that very few went "beyond 
the other degrees, I now say that still fewer go be- 
yond this.-'' 

It is a circumstance that has astonished many per- 
sons, to see those who have lived holy lives like the 
angels die in terrible distress, and almost in despair 
of salvation. They are astonished, and know not 
how to account for it. The reason is, that they 
finished their lives in this degree of the mystical 
death ; and, as God was pleased to hasten their pro- 
gress, He redoubled their sufferings, as happened in 
Taulere's case. 

I shall be told, in reply, that these persons were 
saints perfected according to their degree and in their 
degree. This is true ; but still they had not passed 
the one under consideration, — a circumstance which 
does not interfere with their being saints. A large 
number have been canonized by the church who 
experienced this degree only on their deathbeds, and 

of desolation, when there is desperation, which proximately precedes 
regeneration. The subject is here continued concerning the last 
state of desolation, which is a state of desperation, and concerning its 
increasing grievousness. — A.C. 5280, 5281. 

* The good itself in which truth is implanted causes them not only 
to acknowledge, but also to believe, that reformation is from the Lord. 
This is the third state, which is followed by a fourth state, viz. that 
they perceive it to be from the Lord ; but there are few who arrive 
at this state in the life of the body, it being an angelic state. — 
A.C. 2960. 



92 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

many also never entered upon it. Accordingly, when 
I meet with persons who speak of the rapidity with 
which they are advancing, I cannot help saying that 
they are deceived. They are all perfected, no doubt, 
in those interior states which they do not get beyond ; 
but as for their having passed this, it is a mistake. 
And this proves to be the case in the end. 

6. Accordingly, those souls who are in a state of 
union in the first degree, which marks the beginning 
of that way of naked faith of which I am speaking, do 
wrong to adopt for themselves the rules which apply 
to more advanced states. The stripping of the soul 
must be left to God. He will do it to perfection, 
while the soul will second this stripping and the 
whole process of death without interposing any ob- 
stacle. But to do it of one's self is to spoil all, and 
make of a divine a common state. Thus you see 
some, who, from having read or heard that the soul 
must be stripped of all, set about it themselves, and 
continue always thus without progress ; for, as they 
strip their own selves, God does not clothe them with 
Himself; for, it must be observed, the Divine pur- 
pose in unclothing is only to clothe upon. He 
impoverishes only to make rich, becoming in secret 
Himself the substitute for all that He takes away 
from the soul. This is not the case with those who 
act in this matter from themselves. They lose, in- 
deed, by their faults the gifts of God ; but they do 
not, for all that, possess God. 

7. In this degree the soul cannot sufficiently suffer 
itself to be stripped, emptied, impoverished, killed ; 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 93 

and all it does to sustain itself is nothing but irrepara- 
ble loss, since it is preserving a life which ought to 
be laid down. A person who intended to let a lamp 
go out without extinguishing it, need only refrain 
from putting oil into it, and it would then go out of 
itself; but if, while saying all the while that he 
wished to let the lamp go out, he kept putting oil 
in it from time to time, the lamp would never burn 
out. It is the same with the soul, if, in this degree, 
it takes ever so little of life to itself. If it solaces 
itself, — if it does not suffer itself to be stripped, — in 
a word, if it puts forth any act of life whatsoever, it 
will postpone its death as long, and longer, than its 
life lasts.* 

8. Poor souls ! do not fight against death, and death 
shall give you life. I see them in imagination like 
persons who are drowning. Such struggle to the 
utmost to reach the surface of the water, and hold by 
every thing they can ; they cling to life as long as 

* It is here in advance to be told, in a few words, how the case is 
with that conjunction, namely, with the conjunction of the external 
or natural man with the internal or spiritual. The external or natural 
man, from the first age of life only, neither knows that there is an 
internal or spiritual man: wherefore, when a man is reformed, and 
begins to become spiritual or internal, then the natural at first rebels; 
for it is taught that the natural man is to be subdued, that is, all its 
concupiscences to be extirpated, together with those things which 
confirm them. Hence, when the natural man is left to itself, it thinks 
that so it shall totally perish ; for it does not know otherwise than 
that the natural is all, and is wholly ignorant that there are immense 
and ineffable things in the spiritual; and when the natural man 
thinks thus, it then draws back, and is not willing to be subjected to 
the spiritual. — A.C. 5647. 



94 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

they have any strength, and do not drown until they 
are exhausted. It is thus with these souls. They 
fight to the utmost that they may not perish : it is only 
lack of strength and power from which they expire. 
God, desirous of promoting this death, and pitying 
the soul, cuts off the hands by which it keeps such 
strong hold, and compels it thus to fall to the bottom. 
It cries out with all its strength by reason of the pain 
it feels, but in vain. God is without pity, and it is 
His great mercy that He shows none to the soul at 
this juncture. Be co-workers with God, ye spiritual 
guides, in this course of His. Give no succor to this 
soul. And as you are not allowed to contribute any 
thing to its death, by plunging it, yourselves, into the 
water, neither is it lawful for you to stretch out a 
hand to hold it up. Suffer it to have no resting-place, 
and be inexorable to its complaints. Become brass 
to it, as the heavens have become ; and, if you see it 
die, give no burial to its body. Love will give it 
such an one as it knows of: burial and dust will come 
together. 

9. Crosses now follow ; crosses are multiplied ; and 
the more they are multiplied, the weaker the soul 
becomes to bear them, so that it seems to itself not 
able to carry them any longer.*' What is peculiarly 
afflicting at this time is, that the state of pain always 
begins with something which appears to the soul 

* When the state is changed, and becomes inverse to the fore- 
going, then there is mourning; for then they are let into temptation, 
whereby the things of the proprium are weakened and debilitated. — 
A. C. 5773. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 95 

faulty in itself. It believes itself to have contributed 
to this evil state.*' 

At length the soul is reduced almost to a state of 
insensibility. It begins to grow accustomed to its 
pains, to be convinced of its impotence, of its useless- 
ness, and to despair of itself. It consents even to the 
loss of all favors from on high, and it thinks that God 
has taken them away justly. It does not even hope 
ever to enjoy them again. 

When it sees some gracious soul, its pain is 
redoubled, and it feels itself plunged into the deepest 
of its nothingness. It fain would imitate them ; but, 
seeing its efforts useless, it is compelled to die and 
breathe its last. Then it says, in the words of 
Scripture, — " The thing which I greatly feared has 
come upon me," Job iii. 25. What ! to lose God, it- 
says, and to lose him for ever, without hope of ever 
finding Him again ! What ! to be deprived of love 
for time and eternity ; to be no longer able to love 
Him we know to be so lovely ! Oh, is it not enough, 
Divine Lover of the soul, to repulse Thy creature, 
and to turn away from it, unless it also loses love, 
and loses it (as seems) for ever ! The poor soul 
believes itself, indeed, to have sustained this loss ; but, 
in truth, it never loved more strongly or more purely. 

* When, therefore, ultimate truth is taken away, and so he has 
nothing whereby to defend himself against those who are natural, he 
then comes into temptations, and is accused by evil spirits, who are 
all merely natural, especially of false speaking against goods. Thence 
now are spiritual anxieties, and thence the torments which are called 
torments of conscience. These things appear to man as if in himself 
by influx and communication. — A. C. 5036. 



96 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

It has indeed lost the vigor and sensible power of 
love, but it has not lost love itself : on the contrary, it 
never loved more truly. The poor soul cannot believe 
it, yet it is plain that the fact is so; for the soul 
cannot exist without love, and if it did not love God, 
it must needs love some other thing. But the soul 
in this state is far enough from taking pleasure in 
any thing whatever.* 

10. This does not mean that the senses do not 
bend towards the creatures. This, in fact, now con- 
stitutes the great cause of grief to the soul, which 
regards the revolt of the passions, and its involuntary 
faults, as dreadful transgressions, which bring upon it 
the hatred of its spouse. It would fain wash, whiten, 
purify itself; but it is no sooner washed than it thinks 
that it falls back again into a sewer more filthy and 
noisome than that which it had left. It does not see 
that it gets muddy and falls by mere dint of running, 
and that love is transporting it so vehemently and 
drawing it after itself so swiftly, that it does not see 
false steps. Nevertheless, it is so much ashamed of 
running in this state, that it knows not what to do. 
It goes with garments all torn, and loses all it has in 
the earnestness of its course. 

11. Its Spouse helps to strip it for two reasons. 

* Truth is said to be not conspicuous, because truth in a state of 
desolation appears as if it fled away ; but yet it is present, for all 
truth and good, which at any time have been given by the Lord to 
man, to a spirit, and to an angel, remain, and nothing is taken from 
them, but in a state of desolation they are obscured by the proprium, 
so as not to appear. But when a state of light returns, they are 
made present and conspicuous. — A. C. 6122. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 97 

The first is, that it has spotted its garments, so 
beautiful and magnificent, by its vain self-compla- 
cencies, and that it has appropriated to itself the gifts 
of God by very many reflections and regards of self- 
love.* The second is, because in running it would 
be impeded by this load : the very fear of losing so 
much riches would hinder it in its course. 

12. Poor soul ! what has become of thee ? Thou 
wert formerly the delight of thy Spouse, and He took 
the utmost pleasure in adorning and beautifying thee ; 
and now thou art so naked, so tattered, so poor, that 
thou wouldst not dare either to look at thyself, or to 
appear before Him. The men who now look at thee, 
after having in former times admired thee, when 
they see thee thus tattered, believe either that thou 
hast become mad, or that thou hast committed the 
greatest crimes, and thereby compelled thy Spouse to 
abandon thee. They do not perceive that this jealous 
Spouse, who loves this soul only for Himself, seeing 
that she was amusing herself with her ornaments, 
that she was taking a pleasure in them and indulging 
self- admiration on their account,! — seeing this, I say, 
and that she was ceasing to look at Him in order to 

* With man about to be regenerated, the case is this, that his first 
affection of truth is very impure; for there is in it an affection of use 
and of end for the sake of himself, for the sake of the world, for the 
sake of glory in heaven and the like things, which look towards him- 
self, but not towards the community, the Lord's kingdom, and still 
less towards the Lord. — A. C. 3089. 

f The truth which is given by the Lord is at first received as if it 
were not given ; for man before regeneration supposes that he pro- 
cures for himself truth; and so long as he supposes this, he is in spirit- 



98 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

look at herself, and that she was weakening the love 
she had for Him by loving herself too much, strips 
her, and makes all her beauty and riches vanish from 
before her eyes. 

The soul, in the abundance of its goods, takes a 
pleasure in looking at itself: it sees excellences in 
itself which attract its love, and steal it away from its 
Spouse. Poor, vain thing that it is ! It sees not that 
it is beautiful only with the beauties of its Spouse ; 
and that, if He took them away, it would become so 
ugly that it would be frightful to itself. Moreover, 
it neglects to follow the Spouse in His courses, into 
the deserts and wherever He goes ; it fears to spoil its 
complexion and to lose its jewels. O jealous Love ! 
how well dost Thou do in thus thwarting this proud 
one, and taking away from it what Thou hadst given, 
that it may learn to know what it is, and that, being 
naked and stripped of all, nothing might hold it back 
in its course ! 

13. Our Lord begins then to strip this soul by 
little and little, to take away its ornaments, all its 
gifts, graces, and favors, which are its jewelry that 
encumbers it ; afterwards He takes from it all its 
facilities to good, which are as its garments ; and, after 
this, He takes from it the beauty of its face, which is 
the divine virtue it is unable to practise actively.* 

ual theft. That to claim to one's self, and to attribute to self good 
and truth for righteousness and merit, is to take from the Lord what 
is His, may be seen, n. 2609, &c. — A. C. 5747. 

* It is treated in what now follows concerning the internal celes- 
tial, that it reduced all things in the natural into order, under a 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 99 

14. The first degree of its stripping consists in the 
taking away of graces, gifts, and favors, and of love 
sensible and perceived. It feels itself gradually 
stripped of them. It sees that its Spouse takes back 
by degrees the riches he had given it. It is at first 
greatly afflicted at this loss ; but what most afflicts it 
is, not the loss of these riches, but the displeasure of 
its Spouse. For it believes it to be from anger that 
He thus takes back what he had given. It sees well 
the bad use it has made of them, and the self-com- 
placency it has indulged on account of them, and is 
so filled with shame for it that it is ready to die with 
confusion.* It submits, and dares not say to Him, 
Wherefore dost Thou take back what Thou hadst 

general [principle] to the end that conjunction might be effected of 
scientifics with the truths of the church, and by those truths with 
spiritual good, and by this good with the internal celestial; but 
because the reduction of scientifics into order under a general [prin- 
ciple] cannot be effected otherwise than by vastations of good and 
desolations of truth, and by subsequent supports, therefore both the 
former and the latter are treated of in what now follows in the internal 
sense. — A. C. 6109. 

By precious stones are signified the knowledge of truth and good. 
— A. E. 294. 

Garments signify the truths which pertain to the understanding. — 
A. E. 240. 

Whereas good is the very essence, and truth is the existence thence, 
by beautiful in form is signified the good of life. — A. C. 4985. 

* When heaven flows in, it removes the hindrances, which are evils 
and falses thence derived, which reside in the natural mind, or in the 
natural man; and these cannot be removed, except by a living 
acknowledgment of them by man, and grief of mind on account of 
them. Hence it is that in temptations man experiences anguish from 
the evils and falses rising up into the thought; and in proportion as 



100 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. , 

given me ? For it sees itself to deserve this by the 
bad use it has made of them, and in deep silence it 
looks at Him in a way so pitiable as to manifest to 
Him what it suffers.* 

15. Although it keeps silence, it is not so deep 
as afterwards. It interrupts this silence by tears 
and broken sighs. But it is much astonished to find, 
that, in looking at its Spouse, it sees Him all offended 
at it for weeping over the righteous inflictions where- 
by He has put it out of its power to abuse His 
benefits, and for thinking so little on the evil use it 
has made of them. The soul perceives at once its 
fault and its mistake. It strives to manifest to its 
Spouse that it is not concerned for the loss of His 
gifts, provided He is not offended. It testifies to 
Him that its tears and grief come from having dis- 
pleased Him. The anger of its Spouse, justly offended, 
is so deeply felt, that it thinks no longer of the loss 
of all its riches, but only of that anger. It throws 

he then acknowledges his sins, makes himself guilty, and supplicates 
deliverance, in the same proportion temptations are made serviceable 
to him. — A. E. 897. 

* That they [Joseph's brethren] were charged with theft was that 
there might be effected conjunction ; for man, until he is regenerated, 
cannot otherwise than believe so [that he procures truth for himself], 
He says indeed with his mouth from doctrine, that all the truth of 
faith and good of charity is from the Lord ; but still he does not 
believe this until faith is implanted in good: it is then that he first 
acknowledges it from the heart. That they were charged with theft 
to the intent that conjunction might be effected, is evident also from 
this, that so Joseph brought them back to himself, and for some time 
kept them in thought concerning that deed, and afterwards that he 
manifested himself to them, that is, conjoined. — A. C. 5747. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 101 

itself into a thousand postures to appease Him. Its 
sighs, its groans, and its tears, are the expressions of 
its grief.* This is yet another fault displeasing to its 
Friend ; but, as the soul is still weak, he pretends not 
to notice it. 

16. After having left it to weep a long time, He 
puts on a face as if He were appeased ; Himself dries 
up its tears, and consoles it. O God! what joy is it 
to this soul to see these new bounties of love after 
what it has done ! f He does not, however, give it 
back all its former riches ; but the soul is not troubled 
at this, esteeming itself too happy in being looked at, 
consoled, and cherished by its Well-beloved. At first 
it receives His caresses with so much confusion that 
it dares not lift up its eyes. But as present good 
throws past evils into forgetfulness, it sinks and 

* While man is regenerating, and conjunction is effecting of the 
good of the internal man with the truths of the external, a commotion 
takes place among truths ; for then they undergo another arrangement : 
it is this commotion which is here [Glen. xlv. 3] meant, and which is 
signified by their being in consternation. The commotion which then 
exists manifests itself by an anxiety arising from the change of the 
former state, namely, from a privation of the delight which had been 
in that state: this commotion also manifests itself by anxiety con- 
cerning the past life in that internal good and the internal itself were 
discarded to what was lowest. — A. C. 5881. 

■f Something shall now be said concerning consolations after temp- 
tations. All who are regenerating by the Lord undergo temptations, 
and after temptations experience joys. When, therefore, the evils 
and falses of man are removed, then temptations are finished; and, 
these being finished, joy flows in through heaven from the Lord, and 
fills his natural mind. This joy is what is here understood by con- 
solations, which all receive who undergo spiritual temptations: I 
speak from experience. — A. E. 897. 



102 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

drowns itself in these new caresses of its Spouse, and, 
thinking no more on its past wretchedness, it feeds 
and rests on these caresses. Hereby it compels its 
Spouse to be displeased anew, and to strip it yet 
further. 

17. It must be observed, that God does not take 
from the soul its riches except by little and little, — 
something at one time, something at another. The 
weaker the soul is, the longer is the process of stripping 
it; and the stronger it is, the sooner it is finished: 
inasmuch as God strips the latter more frequently and 
of more things at once. But hard as is this stripping, 
it is only of outside things and superfluities ; that is 
to say, only of gifts, graces, and favors, but not of 
other things. This is done in succession, by reason of 
the soul's weakness.* 1 This proceeding is so admira- 
ble, it is so great a love of God for the soul, that one 
could never believe it previous to experience. For 
the soul is so full of itself, so made up of self-love, 
that, if God did not deal with it thus, it would 
perish.f 

* Man, when he is regenerating, which is effected by the implanta- 
tion of spiritual truth and good, and then by the removal of what is 
evil and false, is not hastily regenerated, but slowly. The reason is 
because all things which the man had thought, intended, and done 
from infancy, have added themselves to his life; and have made it, 
and also have formed such a connection among themselves that one 
cannot be moved away unless all are moved away together with it. — 
A.C. 9334. 

f Hence it is evident that the former life, which is of hell, must be 
altogether destroyed; that is, evils and falses must be removed, to the 
intent that new life, which is the life of heaven, may be implanted. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 103 

18. It will be asked, perhaps, — If the gifts of God 
are so hurtful, wherefore impart them ? God gives 
them from His exceeding goodness, to draw the soul 
from sin and from attachment to the creatures, and to 
turn it back to Himself; * and if he did not give them, 
the soul would be always criminal. But these very- 
gifts with which He graciously endows it, in order 
to detach it from the creature and from itself, and to 
win from it for Himself the love at least of gratitude, 
this creature is so wretched as to make use of for self- 
love and self-admiration, turning its attention away 
from the Giver to them. Self-love is so deeply rooted 
in the creature that these gifts have served to increase 
it ; for it finds in itself new charms, which did not 
exist before; it immerses itself into itself; clings to 

This cannot in any wise be done hastily; for every evil, being inrooted 
■with its falses, has connection with all evils and their falses; and 
such evils and falses are innumerable, and their connection is so 
manifold that it cannot be comprehended, not even by the angels, 
but only by the Lord. Hence it is evident that the life of hell with 
man cannot be destroyed suddenly ; for, if suddenly, he would alto- 
gether expire. — A. C. 9336. 

* During the process of man's regeneration, he is kept by the 
Lord in a kind of mediatory good, which serves for introducing 
genuine goods and truths ; but after these goods and truths are intro- 
duced, they are separated thence. That man may be led from the 
state of the old man into the state of the new, the concupiscences of 
the world must be put off, and the affections of heaven must be put on. 
Since, therefore, the states of his life are to be so much changed, it 
cannot be otherwise than that he should be a long time held in a sort 
of middle good; that is, in a good which partakes. both of the affections 
of the world, and of the affections of heaven; and, unless he be kept 
in this middle good, he in no wise admits heavenly goods and truths. 
— A.C. 4063. 



104 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

itself; appropriates to itself what was God's; and 
growing too familiar with Him, forgets the slavery out 
of which He has delivered it, and a thousand things 
of this kind. God, it is true, could deliver it from all 
this, just as He can deliver man from the huge mass 
of his concupiscences ; but He does not do it for 
reasons known to Himself alone. 

19. The soul, thus stripped of the divine gifts, 
loses something of its self-love, and begins to see that 
it is not as rich as it believed, and that its riches be- 
long to its Spouse. It sees, I say, that it has made a 
wrong use of them, and consents that He shall keep 
them and take them back. It says : I will be rich 
with the riches of my Spouse, and, although He keeps 
them, we shall always be in a community of goods ; 
He will not lose them. It becomes even glad at 
having lost these gifts of God, since it finds itself 
disencumbered, and more lightly equipped for pro- 
gress : in a word, it grows accustomed, by degrees, to 
being stripped, and perceives that it has been good 
and serviceable to it. It is no longer troubled about 
the matter. It arranges its habits as well as may be ; 
and, as it is fair, it is satisfied- that it will still be as 
pleasing to its Spouse, by its agreeable qualities and 
by its own garments, as it was with all its orna- 
ments. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 105 



Section II. 

20—24. The second degree of the stripping of the soul, having reference to its 
habits, or its facility in practising good exteriorly, and in a sensible 
manner. The causes of it, which are, that it attributed that good to itself, 
and had complacency in it, instead of acknowledging how powerless it is 
and destitute, in itself, of all good. 

20. While the soul is thinking only about living in 
peace in this state of loss, and sees clearly the good 
coming to it thereby, and the injury it had inflicted 
on itself by the bad use it had made of the gifts taken 
from it,* it is all astonished that its Spouse, who had 
given it a breathing space only by reason of its weak- 
ness, comes, with yet greater harshness, to strip from 
it its garments. 

Poor soul ! what wilt thou do now 1 The case is 
much worse than before ; for these garments are 
necessary, and it is not seemly to be deprived of them. 
Now it is that the soul resists with all its might. 
It exhibits to its Spouse its reasons for not walking 
thus naked, — shows that this would be matter of 
reproach to Himself. Alas ! it says, I have lost all 
the riches Thou didst bestow upon me, — Thy gifts, 
the sweetness of Thy love ; but I could still perform 
exterior actions of virtue. I used to perform charities. 

* The state is here [Gen. xxxii. 5] described as to its quality 
when inversion takes place, namely, when truth is made subordinate 
to good, that is, when they who have been in the affection of truth 
begin to be in the affection of good. But that such inversion and 
subordination take place does not appear except to those who are 
regenerate, and not to the regenerated except those who reflect. — 
A. C. 4245. 

8 



106 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

I prayed with diligence, although Thou hadst taken 
away Thy sensible graces ; but to lose all this is 
what I cannot consent to. I was still dressed accord- 
ing to my station, and respected in the world as Thy 
spouse ; but, if I lose my garments, this will bring 
reproach upon Thyself. No matter, poor soul ; thou 
must consent to this loss. Thou dost not yet know 
thyself. Thou believest that thy garments are thine 
own, and that thou canst always make use of them.* 
— But I have gained them at the cost of so much care, 
and Thou didst give them me as a reward of the 
labors I underwent for Thy sake. — No matter ; thou 
must lose them. 

21. The soul, after doing its utmost to keep them, 
feels itself stripped of them by little and little. 
Every thing becomes insipid to it ; it has no longer a 
relish for any thing ; f all works of charity are at- 
tended with disgust, and it falls into a state where it 
has no power to perform them. $ It had its disgusts 

* There remain after temptations several states of truth and good 
thence derived, to which the thoughts may be bended by the Lord. — 
A.C. 2334. 

f "To slay all this congregation with hunger" [Gen. xvi. 13]. 
That it signifies, that, from a defect of delight and of good, they were 
expiring, appears, &c. It may be expedient briefly to say how the case 
herein is. When the good of charity is to be insinuated, which makes 
spiritual life, then the delight of pleasures is removed, which had made 
natural life. When this delight is removed, then man comes into 
temptation ; for he believes, if he be deprived of the delight of plea- 
sures, that he is deprived of all life ; for his natural life consists in that 
delight or good, as he calls it. — A.C. 8413. 

$ Spiritual life consists in exercises according to truths, conse- 
quently in uses ; for they who are in spiritual life have an appetite 
fo r and desire truths with a view to life ; that is, that they may live 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 107 

and its pains before, but not impotency. But now- 
all power is taken away from it. " Flesh and heart 
faileth it," Ps. lxxiii. 26. It even loses " the remem- 
brance " (ver. 6) of them for a long time, although 
the inclination thereto still remains ; that being, as it 
were, the last garment which must be removed. 

22. This is done very gradually, and in a painful 
manner ; because the soul sees all the time that this 
has come to pass from its own fault. It no longer 
dares to make any objections; for what it might say 
would only excite the displeasure of its Spouse, whose 
anger is worse to it than death. It begins to know 
itself better, to see that it has nothing of its own, and 
that all belongs to its Spouse.-* It begins to be dis- 
trustful of itself, and loses by degrees the love it had 
for itself. f 

according to them, thus with a view to uses. So far, therefore, as they 
can imbibe truths, according to which they are to effect uses, so far 
they are in spiritual life, because so far in the light of intelligence- 
and wisdom. When, therefore, truths fail, as is the case when a 
state of shade comes, which is signified by evening in the Word, n. 
6110, then spiritual life is in distress. — A.C. 6119. 

* In this chapter [Gen. xxiv.] it is treated throughout of spiritual 
theft, which consists in any one claiming to himself the good and 
truth which is from the Lord. This is a thing of so great moment, 
that a man after death cannot be admitted into heaven, until he 
acknowledges in heart that nothing of good and truth is from himself, 
but from the Lord, and that whatever is from himself is nothing but 
evil. — A.C. 5758. 

f The tempted are in interior anxiety, even to desperation, in 
which they are kept more especially for the end that they may finally 
be confirmed in this, that all things are of the Lord's mercy, that 
they are saved by Him alone, and that in themselves there is nothing 
but evil, in which truths they are confirmed by combats wherein they 
conquer. — A.C. 2334. 



108 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

But it does not yet hate itself; for, although naked, 
it is still fair. 

It regards its Lover from time to time with a pitiable 
look, but says not a single word : it is cast down at 
His displeasure. It thinks it would be a small matter 
to be stripped, if it had only not displeased its Spouse, 
and if it had not made itself unworthy to wear His 
nuptial garments. 

23. If it was overwhelmed at first, when its riches 
were taken a,way, it feels vastly more the shame of 
seeing itself naked. So much ashamed is it, that it 
fain would not appear before its Spouse. Notwith- 
standing, it must acquiesce and run, in this condi- 
tion, everywhere. What ! shall it not be allowed to 
conceal itself ? No ; it must appear thus in public. 
The world begins -to think less of it. They say: Is 
this the soul that was the admiration of men and 
of angels 1 See how it has fallen ! — Its confusion is 
redoubled by these words, because it knows that its 
Spouse has stripped it justly. It does what it can, 
that He may in some measure clothe it again ; but 
He will do nothing of the kind after thus stripping 
it of all. This is a boundless mercy ; for its gar- 
ments pleased the soul while they covered it, and hin- 
dered it from seeing what it was. 

24. It is very astonishing to a soul, which believed 
itself to be far advanced in perfection, to see itself fall 
thus all of a sudden. It thinks that this must be in 
consequence of faults which it had corrected coming 
back anew ; but it is mistaken. It . is because the 
soul was concealed under its garments, which hindered 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 109 

it from seeing itself .as it was.* It is a dreadful thing 
to be in the state of a soul thus naked of the gifts and 
graces of God, and no one without experience of it 
would belier it.f 

Section III. 



25—28. Third degree of the stripping of the soul as it is led from the second 
to the third degree of the passive way of faith. This third kind has refer- 
ence to the heauty of the soul, or its perceived acts of the divine virtues, 
instead of which there come faults of surprise. Consequences of this. How 
God hereby brings the soul to a sensible despair. 29 — 33. Also, to a true 
knowledge and hatred of itself and to true purity. 34 — 38. Interval and 
respite followed by an increased intensity of the preceding operations 
even to mystical death. 



25. But all this would be little, if the soul were to 
retain its heauty ; but the Spouse turns it into ugli- 
ness, and destroys it. Hitherto the soul has submitted 
to be stripped of gifts, graces, and favors, and facility 
for good : it has lost all good things, such as austerities, 
care of the poor, facility in helping the neighbor ; 
but it has not lost the divine virtues. Nevertheless 
it must now lose them also, as far as the practice of 
them is concerned ; for, as regards their reality, they 
are impressed on the soul more strongly than ever. 

* When truth was in the first place, that is, when it seemed to 
itself to have dominion, then falses intermixed themselves ; for truth 
of itself cannot see whether it be truth, but must see it from good. — 
A. C. 4256. 

f When, therefore, the order is inverted, and good takes its prior 
place manifestly, that is, when it begins to have dominion over truth, 
then the natural man is in fear and straitness, and also enters into 
temptations. — A. C. 4256. . 



110 SPIRITUAL TOL'ItEMTS. 

It loses virtue as virtue, but only" to find it again in 
Jesus Christ. 

This altogether humble soul becomes, as seems to 
itself, all proud. This soul so patient, wich suffered 
all things so easily, and found pleasure in It, finds 
that it cannot endure any thing. The senses lose 
their orderliness, and seem as if they would rebel. It 
can neither mortify itself, nor guard itself from any 
thing by its own endeavors, as formerly ; and, what 
is worse, this soul thus disfigured defiles itself, as it 
believes, every moment, and wounds itself with the 
creatures. It complains with the Spouse, " The 
watchmen found me, and wounded me" — Cant. v. 7. 

26. It must be said, however, that persons in this 
state do not commit any voluntary faults.* God 
shows them in general such a depth of corruption in 
themselves, that they would gladly say with Job, " Oh 
that I might hide myself in hell until the anger of 
God was passed! " Job xiv. 13. For it must not be 
thought, that, either at this time or subsequently, God 
suffers the soul to fall into any real sin. So much is 
this the case, that though it appears in its own sight 
as the most miserable of all creatures, yet, when called 
upon to make confession, it finds no faults of detail 
which it has committed, and only accuses itself of 
being full of miseries and of having sentiments con- 
trary to its desires. It is of God's glory, that, in 

* It is further to be known that the evil which enters into the 
thought does not hurt man, because evil is continually infused by- 
spirits from hell, and is continually repelled by the angels; but when 
evil enters into the will, it then hurts. — A. C. 6204. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. Ill 

giving this soul to experience its corruption to the 
utmost, He does not suffer it to fall into sins.* What 
makes its grief so dreadful is, that it is, as it were, 
overwhelmed with the purity of God ; a purity which 
causes it to see the smallest motes of imperfection 
as enormous sins, by reason of the infinite distance 
there is between the purity of God and the impurity 
of the creature, this sinful Adam. It sees that it 
came forth pure from the hands of God, and that it 
has contracted not only the sin of Adam, but also 
innumerable actual sins,f so that its confusion is 
beyond what words can express. What causes men 
to despise it is, not any particular fault they then 
observe, but only that, not seeing it do all that it used 
formerly to do with so much ardor and faithfulness, 
they infer that it has fallen. In this, however, they 
are greatly deceived. 

This explanation may serve for what follows, and 

* All temptations appear evil, by reason that they are interior 
anxieties and griefs, and as it were damnations ; for then man is let 
into the state of his evils, consequently amongst evil spirits, who accuse 
and thus torment the conscience ; but yet the angels defend, that is, 
the Lord by angels, who keeps the man in hope and trust, which are 
the powers of combat from an interior whereby he resists. — A. C. 
6097. 

f He who thinks from an illustrated rational may hence see and 
perceive that man cannot be regenerated without combat, that is, 
without spiritual temptations ; and further that he is not regenerated 
by one temptation, but by several : for there are very many kinds of 
evil which constituted the delight of the former life, that is, the old 
life. All those evils cannot be subdued at once and together; for they 
inhere pertinaciously, inasmuch as they were rooted in the parents 
from many ages backwards, and hence are innate in man, and con- 
firmed by actual evils of himself from infancy. — A. C. 8403. 



112 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

for all that I may express, perhaps too strongly, and 
which those who have not experience in these things 
might take in a bad sense. 

It must also be observed, that, when I speak of 
corruption, of putrefaction, of defilement, &c, I mean 
the destruction and consumption of the old man by 
the central conviction and inmost experience of the 
depth of impurity and propriety that there is in man, 
which, showing him what he is in himself without 
God, causes him to cry out with David, " I am a 
worm, and no man " Ps. xxii. 6 ; and with Job, " If 
I wash myself with snow-water and make my hands 
never so clean, yet shalt Thou plunge me in the 
ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me," Job ix. 
30, 31. 

27. This poor soul does not, then, commit the 
faults it thinks it does ; for it was never, interiorly, 
more pure. The truth is, that, the senses and the 
faculties being without supports, especially the senses, 
they wander uncertainly. Moreover, as the course of 
this soul towards God redoubles in speed, and it for- 
gets itself more and more, it is not to be wondered at 
that it is defiled by the muddy places through which 
it must needs pass ; and, as all its attention is turned 
towards its Well-beloved (although it does not per- 
ceive this, because it is engaged in running), it does 
not think about itself, nor consider where it plants its 
steps. So true is this, that, while it believes itself the 
most criminal of all creatures, it yet commits not a 
single voluntary fault, although all its faults appear 
to it as such. Still it does commit many faults of 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 113 

surprise. Often, indeed, it does not see its faults, 
except after they have been committed. 

28. It cries to its Spouse to stretch out His hand 
for its help ; but He is careful not to do it * at least 
in a sensible manner, although He sustains it with an 
invisible hand.f The soul sometimes thinks that it 
is getting on better, but then is the very time when it 
does worst ; for the design of the Spouse, in suffering 
it to "fall," but yet without "hurting itself" (Ps. 
xxxvii. 24), is, that it may no longer rest upon itself, 
but may recognize its own impotence, % and conceive 
an entire despair of itself, § so that it can say, "I 



* Moreover, they who are in temptations, and not in some other 
active life than that of prayers, they do not know that, in case the 
temptations were intermitted before their full accomplishment, they 
would not be prepared for heaven, thus that they cannot be saved : on 
which account also the prayers of those who are in temptations are 
little heard ; for the Lord wills the end, which is the salvation of man ; 
which end He knows, but not man ; and the Lord does not act for 
prayers against the end, which is salvation. — A.C. 8179. 

t So long as temptation continues, man supposes that the Lord is 
absent, because he is disturbed by evil genii, and that to such a degree 
as sometimes to be reduced to a state of despair, in which he can 
scarce believe that any God exists : nevertheless the Lord is then 
more present than is to him credible. — A.C. 840. 

% That man may become spiritual, it is necessary that his natural 
should become of no account, that is, should have no power at all of 
itself. — A.C. 5651. 

§ There are several reasons why despair is the last of desolation 
and temptation, of which it is allowed to adduce only the following: 
by despair is produced an effectual and sensible acknowledgment that 
nothing of truth and good is from self, and that men are of themselves 
damned, but are delivered by the Lord from damnation, and that sal- 
vation flows in by truth and good. — A. C. 6144. 



114 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

have lost all hope, and I shall live no longer," Job 
xvii. 15. 

29. Now it is that the soul begins truly to hate 
itself, and to know itself, which it never would do, if 
our Lord did not make it feel what it is. All the 
knowledges one has of himself by light, of whatever 
degree they may be, have not power to make the soul 
truly hate itself.* " He who loveth his soul shall 
lose it, and he who hateth his soul shall save it," 
John xii. 25. This is the only experience, I repeat, 
which can truly give the soul to know its infinite 
depth of wretchedness. No other way can give a 
true purity : if it gives any, it gives it only on the 
surface, and not in the inmost, where the impurity, 
not being pressed out and so removed, remains 
hidden. f 



* The same appears also from this, that the spiritual man does not 
know what is evil; he scarce believes any thing to be evil but what is 
contrary to the commandments of the decalogue, being ignorant of 
the evils of affection and thought, which are innumerable, and neither 
reflecting on them, nor calling them evils; moreover he regards the 
delights of lusts and of pleasures no otherwise than as good, and the 
delights of self-love he both indulges and approves and excuses, not 
knowing that such things affect his spirit, and determine its quality in 
another life. — A. C. 2715. 

f The proprium of innocence is, that one knows, acknowledges, 
and believes, not with the mouth, but with the heart; that nothing 
but evil is from self, and that all good is from the Lord; consequently, 
that his proprium is nothing but black, namely, both the voluntary 
proprium which is evil, and the intellectual proprium which is false. 
When man is in this confession and faith from the heart, then the 
Lord flows in with good and truth, and insinuates into him a heavenly 
proprium which is bright and shining. It is impossible for any one 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 115 

30. Now it is that God searches out, in the very 
depths of the soul, its radical impurity, which is the 
effect of that self-love and that propriety which God 
would destroy. He presses it, and so forces it out. 
If you take a sponge full of impurity and wash it ever 
so much, you will only cleanse the outside : you will 
not make it clean within, unless you press it, and thus 
squeeze out all the filth it contains. This is what 
God does. He presses this soul in a painful, agonizing 
manner, and thereby brings out what was most deeply 
hidden within it. 

When the soul perceives the stench of this impu- 
rity, it thinks it is some new filthiness whereby it is 
defiled ; but it is quite the contrary. This filth was 
there before, unseen ; and it is perceived now only 
because it is in the process of removal,*' One who 
has an imposthume in some part feels no disgust at 
it so long as it is not opened. But when the sur- 
geon makes an incision, and squeezes out the pus, 
the patient complains of the stench, and is sick at the 
stomach. This imposthume was just as offensive 
while it was hidden, and much more dangerous, al- 
though there was no complaint of its ofTensiveness. 
The patient thinks he is undergoing defilement be- 
to be in true humiliation, unless he be in this acknowledgment and 
faith from the heart; for then he is in self-annihilation, yea, in self- 
aversion, and thus in absence from himself, and thus in a state of 
receiving the divine of the Lord. — A. C. 3994. 

* It is to be observed that man cannot be purified from evils, and 
thence from falsities, unless the unclean things which are in him 
emerge even into the thought, and are there seen, acknowledged, 
discerned, and rejected. — A. E. 580. 



116 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

cause it suppurates, whereas it is the very contrary.*' 
The external, it is true, is defiled by it for a short 
time, but only to the end that both the external and 
the internal may be purified at last. Unless God 
dealt thus with the soul, Self-love,| that frightful 
imposthume, would never be cleansed ; and the more 
it should be covered with beautiful garments, the 
deeper it would go, and the more it would turn 
inwardly, and ruin, without suspicion of the mischief 
it was working, all the noble parts. 

31. I say, then, that this way, so abject, so poor, 
so filthy, is alone able to purify thoroughly ; and that, 
without it, we should always be filthy, although we 
might appear very neat. It is needful that God 
should show the soul what itself is, to the very bot- 
tom. This grace of faith to suffer one's self to be 
stripped always has to do with the most deep-seated 
faults, and those most hidden in self-love, with cer- 
tain darling sins which nature presses to her bosom, 
and guards with jealous care ; which others do not 
regard as faults ; but which, on the contrary, appear 
to be virtues, so that, in losing them, it seems as if 



* All temptations appear evil by reason that they are interior 
anxieties and griefs, and as it were damnations ; for then man is let 
into the state of his evils, consequently amongst evil spirits, who 
accuse, and thus torment the conscience. — A. C. 6097. 

f Hence may appear what is the quality of self-love, viz., that it 
is not only destructive of the human race, as was shown above, n. 2045, 
but that it is also destructive of heavenly order; and, consequently, 
that there is in it nothing but impurity, defilement, profaneness, and 
hell itself, however different the appearance may be to those who are 
in it. — A. C. 2057. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 117 

we were losing virtue itself.*' For virtue is not truly- 
acquired except by the opposite temptations, as it is 
written, " He that is not tempted, what doth he 
know?" Ecclus. xxxiv. 9.f The more attached we 
are to a virtue, the more we are exercised with regard 
to this same virtue. The faults of other ways are 
known by those in them more superficially. Those 
which God searches out in the inmost of such souls 
would pass for perfections with the others, who have, 
in fact, an admirable prudence, a great wisdom, a 
thousand proprieties which they cherish dearly. They 
have courage : they are great souls. But those I am 
speaking of no longer have any thing at all. There 
is with them nothing but weakness on weakness, im- 
potence on impotence. There is not left to them the 
least proprietism. Others go by what is, and subsist 
by something great : they go from sanctity to sanc- 
tity. These go by what they have not. Accordingly 

* As to what concerns mourning on account of truths derived from 
the proprium, which is signified by their rending their garments and 
offering themselves for servants (Gen. xliv. 13), it is to be known 
that with those who are regenerated, there is effected a turning, 
namely, that they are led by truth to good, and that afterwards from 
good they are left to truth. "When this turning takes place, or when 
the state is changed, and becomes inverse to the foregoing, then there 
is mourning; for then they are let into temptation, whereby the 
things of the proprium are weakened or debilitated, and good is 
insinuated. — A. C. 5773. 

•f- Temptations also give the quality of the apperception of good 
and truth by the opposites which evil spirits then infuse ; from the 
opposites apperceived are procured relatives, from which all quality is; 
for no one knows what good is, unless he also knows what is not 
good, nor what truth is unless he knows what is not true. — A. C. 5356. 



118 SPIRITUAL TOUHENTS. 

they are far removed from attaching themselves to 
any thing, having lost all. Being so ugly and so 
filthy, whereto should they attach themselves ? 

32. The most favored of these souls are, for the 
most part, the offscouring of the world : they are 
always thwarted. What others do is admired ; but, 
as for them, it seems as if they spoiled every thing 
they undertook. They succeed in nothing, and are 
approved of in nothing. In a word, in spite of them- 
selves, they must do justice on themselves, and see 
all happiness in their Spouse, and all misery in them- 
selves.* 

It could not he believed, except from experience, 
what nature left to itself is capable of.f Indeed, 
indeed, our own nature left to itself is worse than all 
the devils .J 

33. For this reason, it must not be thought that 
the soul, in the wretched state that has been described, 

* Whatsoever comes from man, spirit and angel, as from his own 
or the proprium, is nothing but evil ; since all good, which appertains 
to every one, is from the Lord. — A. C. 10,808. 

He who is regenerated acknowledges and believes that the good 
and the truth with which he is affected is not from himself, but from 
the Lord ; also that whatever is from himself or from his proprium is 
nothing but evil. — A. C. 5354. 

■j- It has been shown me by lively experience, that a man and a 
spirit, yea an angel, considered in himself, that is, all his proprium, is 
the vilest excrement ; and that, left to himself, he would breathe noth- 
ing but hatred, revenge, cruelty, and the most foul adulteries. These 
things are his proprium and his will. — A. C. 987. 

$ Freedom derived from the proprium is to indulge in all kinds of 
pleasures, &c. Such things are from freedom derived from the pro- 
prium. Hence it is evident what is man's quality when he is in that 
freedom, namely, that he is a devil under human form. — A. C. 5786. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 119 

is forsaken of God. It was never better sustained by 
Him :* it is only nature, left a little to itself, which 
makes all this disorder, the soul having no part in it. 
This poor widowed soul, running hither and thither 
after its Well-beloved, is not only greatly defiled, as 
I have said, but is wounded by the thorns it meets 
with. It is so fatigued that it must needs breathe its 
last, and die in its course without succor. 

The greatest blessing the soul can receive in this 
way is, that God should show it no pity ; and, when 
He would greatly promote the progress of a soul, He 
lets it run even to death. If he stops it for a few 
moments — a thing which overjoys and gives new 
life to the poor soul — it is by reason of its weakness, 
lest it should lose all spirit, and mere weariness should 
compel it to rest. 

34. When he sees this, he casts a look upon it for 
a moment ; and the poor soul, by this look, finds itself 
seized and love-stricken anew, in a way so strong, 
that it is beside itself, and as it were swooning with 
delight. It would fain say to Him : Alas ! why hast 
Thou made me run so much ? " Give me a little rest 
until I can swallow down my spittle," Job vii. 19. 
'• Oh that I might find Him alone, that I might lead 
Him forth" (Cant. viii. 1, 2), and might see Him 
face to face. But, alas ! when it thinks to hold Him, 

* For then [in temptations] man is let into the state of his evils, 
consequently among evil spirits, who accuse, and thus torment the 
conscience; but yet the angels defend, that is, the Lord by angels, 
who keeps the man in hope and trust, which are the powers of combat 
from an interior whereby he resists. — A. C. 6097. 



120 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

He flies away again. " I sought Him," it says, " and 
did not find Him," Cant. iii. 1. Inasmuch as, by 
this look from its Spouse, the soul has become more 
loving, it redoubles its course to find Him. Never- 
theless it was stopped so long as the look lasted. 
For this reason the Spouse looks at the soul as little 
as possible, and then only when he sees that it is 
losing courage. Were it only strong enough, it could 
go much faster without stopping. If a traveller could 
walk continually, without need of rest or of nourish- 
ment, he could go much faster ; but he needs both 
the one and the other on account of his weakness ; 
both impart new strength to him, which is given him 
because of his need, and because his nature would 
sink if he were deprived of it. It is the same in 
this way. 

35. The soul, then, really dies here at the end of 
its course, because all the active force necessary for 
running fails it. For, although it has been hitherto 
in a passive state, it still had not lost its active power, 
although this activity was not apparent to itself: the 
attraction it experienced, made it run without its feel- 

* Celestial men are such, that, before they put off that state [the 
state of the old or former natural man], they are in so strong a natural 
as to truth, that they can combat with the infernals. — A. C. 3301. 

When, therefore, truths fail, as is the case when a state of shade 
comes, which is signified by evening in the Word, n. 6110, then 
spiritual life is in distress; for such things present themselves as are 
of shade, that is, of spiritual death, for they are not then kept in 
light, as heretofore, but are remitted in some part into their pro- 
prium. Hence there is presented from the shade an image of spiritual 
death, that is, of damnation. — A. C. 6119. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 121 

ing or knowing it. The Spouse says, " Draw us, and 
we will run after thee " (Cant. i. 3). It runs, indeed; 
but how 1 — By losing all. It is like the sun which 
is constantly hastening without reaching a state of 
rest. 

The soul loses all, in this state, by the mystical 
death, to run beneath other skies ; or rather, to speak 
more truly, it is like the sun which vanishes from our 
hemisphere, where it will be no longer visible, being 
hidden in the sea. This is the sepulchre, where the 
soul undergoes another kind of death, and experiences 
its own noisomeness, as will be stated. 

36. The self-hatred of the soul in this state is such 
that it cannot endure itself. It cannot look upon 
itself except by a side-long glance. It can say 
nothing of itself but evil. Now it is that it is noth- 
ing, either before God, or before the creatures, or 
before itself. It thinks its Spouse has good cause to 
treat it thus. It thinks that it is its own noisome- 
ness which causes Him disgust. It sees not that the 
case is just the other way, — that He flies only to 
draw it after Him, and seems to defile it only to make 
it pure. When the iron is put into the fire to purify 
it and take away its rust, it appears at first to grow 
black and dingy, but afterwards it is easy to see that 
it has been purified. He makes it experience its 
weakness, only that it may lose all its own proper 
strength, and all self-dependence ; and that, despair- 
ing of all, He may carry it Himself, and it may suffer 
itself to be carried. For how vigorous so ever may 
be its progress, it still walks like a child ; but when 



122 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

it is in God and God carries it, although it appears to 
rest, its steps are boundless, because they are the 
steps of God Himself. 

37. This soul, yet more, sees others decked with its 
own spoils. When it sees a holy soul, it dares not 
accost it ; it only sees with admiration, how it is 
decked with all the ornaments which the Spouse has 
taken away from itself. But although it admires 
such a soul, and feels itself plunged into the very 
abyss of nothingness, it yet cannot desire to have 
them, so much does it feel itself unworthy of them. 
It thinks it would be profaning them to put them on 
one so covered with filth and impurity. It even 
rejoices to see, that, though itself excites sorrow in 
its Well-beloved, there are others who are His favorites. 
It is far removed from the jealousy of the first period, 
when it wished to have and keep Him always : on the 
contrary, it is glad that He does not look at it, that 
He may not be sickened by the sight, and that He 
may enjoy Himself with others, whom it esteems 
happy in having gained the favors of their God ; for, 
as regards the ornaments, although it sees them 
decked therewith, it does not believe that they make 
them happy. If it esteems them blessed at seeing 
them decked therewith, it is because they are pledges 
of the love of its Well-beloved. 

38. When it holds itself thus lowly in the presence 
of these souls, whom it regards as queens, it knows 
not the good which its nakedness, its death, and its 
putrefaction is destined to cause it. He makes it 
naked, only to be Himself its clothing. " Put on 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 123 

Jesus Christ," says St. Paul, Rom. xiii. 14. He kills 
only to be Himself its life. " If we are dead with 
Jesus Christ, we shall also rise with Him." He anni- 
hilates it only to transform it into Himself. 

This loss of virtue takes place only by degrees, 
like the other losses ; and this apparent carrying away 
to evil is involuntary. For the evil which makes 
these souls so filthy in their own eyes is not true 
evil, nor dangerous : it is not evil of which they are 
proprietary ; for, in this state, they have no proper will, 
nor determination to any thing whatsoever.* 

What defiles them is certain instances of precipita- 
tion and quickness, which pass immediately, though 
not without filling them with confusion ; and certain 
faults which are only in the sentiments. As soon as 
a soul sees the beauty of a certain virtue, it falls im- 
mediately, as seems to it, into the opposite vice. For 
example, if it loves truth, it speaks words either of 
precipitation or of exaggeration, and thinks itself 
guilty of lying every moment ; though, in fact, this 
is not the case, as it does not speak otherwise than 
as it thinks. If it loves gentleness, hasty feelings 

* By what enters into the mouth [Matt. xv. 11, 17 — 19], in the 
literal sense, is understood food of every kind, which, after its use in 
the body, goes through the belly into the draught; but, in the spiritual 
sense, by the things which enter into the mouth, are understood all 
things which enter into the thought from the memory, and also from 
the world, which things also correspond to food; and those things 
which enter into the thought, and not at the same time into the will, 
do not render a man unclean, for the memory and the thought thence 
derived pertaining to man are only as the entrance to him, since the 
will is properly the man. — A. E. 580. 



124 SPIRITUAL TORBENTS. 

come unexpectedly over it. It is so with all the other 
virtues. And the more important the virtues are, and 
the more the soul clings to them (because they appear 
more essential to it), the more they are forcibly plucked 
away from it, to its great pain and anguish. 

Section IY. 

9 — 41. Entrance of the soul on the mystic death as regards its senses, its 
faculties, and even its perceptible inmost. 42 — 45. Important observa- 
tions on this state. 

39. The poor soul, after having lost all, is destined, 
at length, to lose itself by an utter despair of any 
thing ; or, rather, it is destined to die overwhelmed 
with horrible fatigues.*' Prayer in this degree is very 
painful, because, as the soul is no longer able to 
make use of its faculties, the exercise of which is 
entirely taken from it, and God has withdrawn from 
it a certain sweet and profound calm which used to 
sustain it, it comes to resemble those poor children 
who run hither and thither seeking food, without find- 
ing any one to give it them. From this cause, prayer 
appears now to be entirely lost, as with those who 
were never accustomed to its practice ; but with this 
difference, that the pain of losing it is felt because 
its value is known from previous possession, whereas 

* "And the famine was upon all the faces of the land" [Gen. 
xli. 56]. That it signifies when the desolation was even to despera- 
tion, appears from the signification of famine, as being desolation; 
and from the signification of land [earth], as being the natural: upon 
all the faces of which when the famine is said to be, thereby is sig- 
nified desperation, because then the desolation is everywhere ; for the 
utmost and last state of desolation is desperation. — A. C. 5369. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 125 

others feel no trouble from its privation because they 
do not know its value. It can no longer find any 
support in the creatures ; and if it feels itself, at times, 
bent and carried towards them, it is from impetuosity, 
without yet finding any thing satisfying in them. 
Still, it often goes astray, and would fain cast itself 
headlong into the things it delighted in formerly ; but 
alas ! it finds in them so much bitterness, that it 
withdraws from them as quickly as possible, and 
there remains to it nothing but the pain of its unfaith- 
fulness. 

40. The imagination is thrown into utter disorder, 
and allows of scarcely any rest. The three faculties 
of the soul [the understanding, the memory, and the 
will] gradually lose their life, so that, in the end, they 
have none at all. This is very painful to the soul, 
and especially to the will, which had learned to 
delight in a certain secret and tranquil something 
which comforted the other faculties in their death and 
impotence. 

41. This certain something which is a prop or stay, 
in the inmost, is what it costs most to surrender, and 
what the soul endeavors most strongly to retain ; for 
the more subtle it is, the more it appears divine and 
necessary. It would readily consent never to make 
use of the other two faculties, and not even of that of 
the will in a distinct and perceptible manner, if this 
favorite something might be left it. For how should 
a soul subsist without means, and without this, in 
particular, so pure, that it would seem to be the end 
to which every thing in religion tends, and the reward 



126 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

for all its labors 1 What, indeed, does a soul desire,, 
in all its labors, but to have tbis testimony in its 
inmost, that it is a child of God ? All spirituality 
centres in this experience. 

Nevertheless, it must be given up, like all the rest, 
and be succeeded by the dreadful experience of all 
the miseries we are full of. This is what truly 
operates the death of the soul ; for whatever wretch- 
edness the soul may feel, if this certain something, 
which makes the life of the soul, were not yielded up, 
it would not die ; and, in like manner, if this cer- 
tain something were given up without its feeling its 
miseries, it would have a support, and would never 
die. It knows and easily understands, that it must 
pass long and dreadful periods of darkness ; that it 
must .give up all delights, all sentiments however 
subtle they may be. For this reason it bears up 
strongly under the privation of its props and its 
delights — (especially is this the case with those who 
are enlightened and wise) ; but to give up a certain 
almost imperceptible support, and fall from weakness,* 
fall into wretchedness and the very dust, — to this 
we can never consent, because, in fact, we are not 
required to consent to it. This is the point where 
reason is lost. Tnen it is that mortal fears and 
agonies seize upon the heart, which seems endowed 
with life only to feel its death.f 

* That man may become spiritual, it is necessary that his natural 
should become of no account, that is, should have no power at all of 
itself.— A. C. 5651. 

f The external or natural man from the first age of life rules, 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 127 

The loss, then, of this imperceptible support, and 
the experience of its wretchedness, are the two things 
which cause death. 

42. The soul has need to be very faithful in a time 
so naked and so hard, lest it should suffer its senses 
to turn towards the creatures voluntarily, seeking 
voluntary comfort and refreshment : I say voluntary ; 
for as regards the practice of austerities, and the turn- 
ing of its regards to itself, it is incapable of them in 
this state. And the more such souls have been mor- 
tified, and so brought into a state which, to the 
unexperienced, appeared like death, the more incli- 
nation have they towards the opposite, without being 
aware of it themselves, like one out of his right 
mind who goes wandering hither and thither. And 
if you would hold them back too rigorously, besides 
its being useless, this application to the external 
would retard and hinder death. 

43. What, then, is to be done 1 We must be care- 
ful to do nothing to soothe the senses in a criminal 
and imperfect manner ; we must suffer them, and some- 
times refresh them in things innocent, from charity. 

neither knows that there is an internal or spiritual man; wherefore 
when a man is reformed and begins to become spiritual or internal 
from being natural or external, then the natural at first rebels ; for 
it is taught that the natural man is to be subdued, that is, all its 
concupiscences to be extirpated, together with those things which 
confirm them. Hence, when the natural man is left to itself, it thinks 
that so it shall totally perish ; for it does not know otherwise than, 
that the natural is all, and is wholly ignorant that there are immense 
and ineffable things in the spiritual; and when the natural man 
thinks thus, it then draws back, and is not willing to be subjected to, 
the spiritual. — A. C. 5647. 



128 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

For as they are not capable of the operations that are 
going on within, to constrain and force them would 
be to ruin the health, and even the powers of the 
mind, and perhaps the interior. All this must be 
connived at, as we do with children, without being 
too severe in refusing things permitted. 

44. What I am saying is applicable only to the 
degree under consideration. For, if the soul should 
proceed thus in the period when grace is strong and 
vigorous, it would be doing wrong. And indeed, our 
Lord, infinite in His mercy, Himself shows the course 
which ought to be pursued ; for, at the beginning, 
He presses the poor senses so closely, that He gives 
them no quarter. It is enough that they desire any 
thing to have it snatched away from them : a look, 
a word, the smallest gratification, would cause bound- 
less suffering. God acts thus, in order to deliver the 
senses from their imperfect operation, and make them 
more interior ; and while he weans them outwardly, 
He binds them inwardly, in a way so gentle that it 
costs them scarcely any thing to deprive themselves 
of all : they even find more sweetness in this than in 
the possession of all things. But when they are 
sufficiently purified and introverted, God, desiring to 
draw the soul away from itself by a movement in 
exactly the opposite direction,* permits the senses to 

* It is to be known that with those who are regenerated there 
is effected a turning, namely, that they are led by truth to good, 
and that afterwards from good they are led to truth. When this 
turning takes place, or when the state is changed and becomes in- 
verse to the foregoing, then there is mourning; for then they are let 
into temptation, &c. — A.C. 5773. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 129 

extrovert themselves, and diffuse themselves towards 
the exterior. This appears to the soul a great im- 
purity : nevertheless, the thing is then appropriate to 
its state, and to do otherwise would be to purify our- 
selves otherwise than according to the Divine will, 
and to incur defilement. 

45. This does not hinder but that faults may be 
committed in this extroversion of the senses ; but the 
confusion redounding thence to the soul, and faithful- 
ness in making use of it, constitute the dunghill 
whereon it goes more quickly through putrefaction. 
"All things work together for good to them who 
love," Rom. viii. 28. Here, accordingly, it is that 
we lose all the esteem of the creatures. They look 
on you with scorn, and say, Is not this the soul we 
used formerly to admire ? How is it that it has be- 
come so unsightly and ugly 1 Alas ! the soul replies, 
" Do not look upon me, by reason that I am black ; 
for it is the sun that has made me thus unsightly," 
Cant. i. 6. And now it enters all at once into the 
third degree, which is that of burial and putrefac- 
tion. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Third Degree of the passive way of naked faith, in its consummation. 
1 — 4. The finished state of the soul's death. 5—7. Its burial. 8—13. Its 
corruption or putrefaction. 14 — 16. Its reduction to ashes. 17 — 20. 
Counsels as to guidance in these states, which are followed by a new life. 

1. The torrent, as we have said, has gone through 
all imaginable roarings and tossings. It has been 



130 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

hurled against the rocks, — its whole progress being 
nothing but a tumbling from one rock to another; 
but it has all along kept in sight, and we have not 
yet seen it swallowed up from the view. But now it 
begins to lose itself in gulf after gulf. It had, up to 
this time, a certain steady pace, although so precipi- 
tate, confused, and broken ; but now it plunges with 
still greater impetuosity into deep caverns. It is for 
a long time invisible ; then we perceive it for a little, 
but rather by the ear than by the eye, and it makes 
its appearance only to dash itself into a gulf yet 
deeper. It falls from abyss to abyss, from precipice 
to precipice, until at length it falls into the abyss of 
the sea, where, losing all shape, it never finds itself 
again, having become the sea itself. 

2. The soul, after many deaths of ever-increasing 
severity, expires at length in the arms of love, but 
without perceiving those very arms. It no sooner 
expires than it loses all action of life, however simple 
and subtle, all desire, inclination, choice, all interior 
repugnances and oppositions. The nearer it drew to 
death, the weaker it became ; ■ and its life, although 
languishing and agonizing, has still life, and there 
might still remain to the soul some hope, although its 
death was inevitable.*' But now there is hope no 
longer. The torrent must make its plunge, and be 
seen no more. 

* Truth of itself has not life, but from good, inasmuch as truth is 
only a vessel recipient of good ; and in good there is life, but not in 
truth except what is from good. Wherefore the privation of the life 
of truth from itself is not the extinction of truth, but is its vivifica- 



\ 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 131 

3. O God ! what a case is this ! Where, formerly, 
were precipices are now abysses. The soul falls, with 
a rush, into an abyss of miseries from which there is 
no day of deliverance. At first this abyss is not so 
great ; but the further it advances, the more abysses it. 
meets with, and the more dreadful it finds them, so 
that it goes from bad to worse ; for it is to be observed, 
that any degree, at its commencement, partakes much 
of that which precedes, and, at its close, begins to feel 
much of that which is to follow.*' It is also to be 
observed, that each degree includes an infinity of 
other degrees. 

4. A man, after his death and before he is buried, 
is still among the living ; he has still the shape of a 
man, although he inspires fear. The soul, in like 
manner, in the first of this degree, has still some 
resemblance to what it formerly was. There remains 
to it a certain secret and hidden impression of God, 
as there remains in a dead body a certain heat which 
is extinguished by degrees.- The soul still attempts 
worship and prayer ; but all this is soon taken from 
it. It must lose not only all prayer and every gift of 
God, but God Himself, in all appearance, and lose 
Him, not for one, two, or three years, but for ever.f 

tion ; for when truth appears to itself to have life from itself, then it 
has not life, except such life as in itself is not life ; but when it is 
deprived of that, it is then gifted with real life, viz., by good from 
the Lord, who is life itself. — A. C. 3607. 

* A medium, that it may be a medium, must derive somewhat from 
each, namely, from the internal and external ; otherwise it is not a 
conjoining medium. — A. C. 5822. 

f Arrangement is effected by removal and concealment; not that 



132 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

All facility in doing good and all active virtue are 
taken away from it.* It remains naked and stripped 
of all. The world, which formerly thought so much 
of it, begins to be afraid of it. They still keep up 
an outward show of respect for it ; but it is only that 
they may bury it, — hide it away in the earth, and 
see it no longer. 

It is to be observed, that it is no visible fault which 
thus produces the contempt of men, but the inability 
to do the good, which was formerly done with so much 
facility. Formerly, whole days were passed in the 
church, or in visiting the sick poor, often contrary to 
duty ; but now those things cannot be done any longer. f 

at any time the Lord removes or conceals mercy, but when he who is 
regenerating is let into his own evils, then the Lord appears to him as 
if removed and concealed, the evils interposing themselves and effect- 
ing this; comparatively as thick clouds, which present themselves be- 
fore the sun, and cause his absence and concealment. — A. C. 5696. 

* In regard to this, that there is spiritual death when there is a 
deficiency of truth, the case is this: Spiritual life consists in exer- 
cises according to truths, consequently in uses ; for they who are in 
spiritual life have an appetite for and desire truths with a view to 
life, that is, that they may live according to them, thus with a view 
to uses. So far, therefore, as they can imbibe truths, according to 
which they are to effect uses, so far they are in spiritual life, because 
so far in the light of intelligence and wisdom. When, therefore, 
truths fail, as is the case when a state of shade comes, which is sig- 
nified by evening in the Word, then spiritual life is in distress ; for 
such things present themselves as are of shade, that is, of spiritual 
death; for they are not then kept in light, as heretofore, but are 
remitted, in some part, into their proprium : hence there is presented 
from the shade an image of spiritual death, that is, of damnation. — 
A. C. 6119. 

■f- So in David: "My father and my mother have forsaken me, 
and Jehovah gathereth me," Ps. xxviii. 10; where father and 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 133 

5. This poor soul will soon be given over entirely 
to forge tfulness. By little and little it so loses every 
thing, that it is entirely poor. The creatures cast it 
into the earth, and it is thought of no more. Every 
one casts dust upon it, and it is trodden under foot. 
Poor soul, it must needs be that thou shouldst see 
all this. If the body could see while they were 
burying it, what distress would it not feel 1 The 
soul sees all this, sees with it terror, but cannot help 
it. It must suffer itself to be buried, covered with 
earth, and crushed by all the creatures. 

6. This is a state where there are excellent crosses; 
the more excellent, the more the soul believes itself to 
have deserved them. It begins accordingly to be hor- 
rified at itself. God casts it off so far that it seems as 
if he would abandon it for ever.*' Poor soul, thou must 
have patience, and continue to lie in the sepulchre. 

7. It continues there in peace, although with fright- 
ful horrors, because indeed it sees that there is very 
little likelihood of getting out of it, and that it must 
remain there for ever. It sees, also, that this is the 
fitting place for it, as it now is, and that any other 
would be yet more afflictive.! It shuns the creatures 

mother denote good and truth, which are said to have forsaken, when 
man observes that of himself he is not able to do any thing good, or 
to know any thing true. — A. C. 3703. 

* Temptations are continual despairings concerning salvation, in the 
beginning slight, but in process of time grievous, till at last there is 
doubt almost negative concerning the presence of the Divine and His 
aid. — A.C. 8567. 

■f Peace is the inmost in every delight, even in what is undelight- 
lightful with the man who is in good. — A. C. 8455. 



134 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

in good earnest, because it sees there is nothing more 
to be done on its behalf, and that they feel an aver* 
sion towards it. The world speaks ill of it, and regards 
it no longer except as a corpse which has lost the life 
of grace, and is fit for nothing but to be buried in 
the earth. 

8. The soul bears patiently this abject state. But 
alas ! how is even this state sweet, compared with 
what is to follow ! How glad would it be to remain 
in the sepulchre, if only it need not putrefy ! The 
old man corrupts by little and little. Formerly, it 
was tried by weakness and faintings ; but now, the 
soul sees the depth of its corruption, which hitherto 
it did not know, because it was impossible for it to 
conceive what self-love and propriety are.*' All this 
goes on in the inmost of the soul, without the senses 
having any share in it. O God ! what horror is it to 
the soul thus to see itself putrefying if All troubles, 
scorns, and contradictions of the creatures cease to 
affect it. It is even insensible to the privation of the 
sun of righteousness. It knows that that does not 

* But in proportion as those loves [the love of self and the love 
of the world] are removed, heavenly love, flowing in from the Lord, 
begins to appear, yea, to shine bright in the interior man ; and in the 
same proportion man begins to see that he is in evil and the false, 
yea, afterwards, that he is in the unclean and filthy, and lastly, that 
this was his proprium. — A. C. 2041. 

f But the other rational with which man is gifted of the Lord, 
when he is regenerated, is like the same fruit in good ground, in which 
there is a decay of those parts which encompass the seeds; and the 
seeds themselves shoot forth from their inmosts, and emit a root, and 
also a stem above ground. — A. C. 2657. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 135 

shine in the tombs. But to feel its corruption is what 
it cannot bear. Great God ! what would it not suf- 
fer rather 7 Nevertheless it must be borne, and the 
soul must experience to its inmost depths * what 
itself is. — But these, perchance, are sins, and God 
beholds me with horror. Yet what can be done 7 — 
I must bear it, — there is no remedy. 

9. But still, if I went through this putrefaction 
without having God to see me, I could be w r ell pleased. 
What troubles me is the aversion that I cause Him. 
But alas ! poor, forsaken creature, what canst thou do 7 
It ought to suffice thee that thou dost not love cor- 
ruption, but bearest it ; although, indeed, thou dost 
not even know that thou dost not will it. Thou canst 
not judge of this matter thyself. Others judge of it 
by the pain it causes thee. 

10. The soul thus in corruption is so full of horror 
at itself, that it cannot endure itself. The pain of suf- 
fering its own stench is so great, that it is no longer 
concerned at any thing that can be done to it out- 
wardly. Nothing any longer affects it. It sees itself 
worthy of all scorn. Others see it only with horror ; 
but this gives it no concern, since the self-nausea it 
feels and its own noisomeness convince it that they are 
right ; and, if it sees souls living in God, it believes 

* The fear of love is, lest in any manner the Lord should suffer 
hurt, or in any manner a neighbor; thus lest in any manner good 
and truth should suffer hurt, consequently lest should the holy of 
love and faith, and thence of worship; but this fear is various, and 
not alike with one person as with another. — A. C. 3718. 



136 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

itself unworthy to approach them. It plunges into 
putrefaction as into the place appropriate to it.* 

11. It is not troubled that God puts it away, for it 
sees most plainly that it deserves this. It is even 
delighted that He does not look on it any longer ; that 
He leaves it in its putrefaction, and bestows all His 
graces on others; that they are the objects of His 
affection, and that itself inspires Him only with 
horror. 

But what it cannot make up its mind to is, that the 
ill odor of its corruption should ascend even to God. 
It fain would not sin. It matters not, says the soul, 
that I putrefy, that I am the sport of all the creatures, 
that I am in the depths of hell with all the devils.f 
if I do not sin. It thinks no longer about loving or 
not loving. It believes itself incapable of love, — 
love is no longer for such as itself. It has become 
worse than one in the more natural state, since it 
is in the corruption common to bodies deprived of 
life. 

12. Well, perhaps, this corruption will last but a 
little while. Alas ! quite otherwise. It will last 

* It is impossible for any one to be in true humiliation, unless he 
be in this acknowledgment and faith from the heart [that nothing 
but evil is from self, and that all good is from the Lord] ; for then he 
is in self-annihilation, yea, in self-aversion. — A. C. 3994. 

•f When man is tempted, he is also near hell. From the hells by 
spirits, those things flow in which occasion anxiety to man in tempta- 
tions.— A. C. 8131. 

In a state of desolation, when man is being regenerated, there is 
not damnation, but the fear of damnation. — A. C. 6140. 






SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 137 

several years, and go on continually increasing, except 
towards the end, when putrefaction becomes dust, and 
what is ashes returns to ashes. 

13. The poor torrent goes like one wild from abyss 
to abyss, from precipice to precipice, from corruption 
to corruption ; all its members are attacked at the 
same time. It is all over with it ; there is an end of 
all good resolutions, of all austerities. It seems as 
if all its senses and faculties were in confusion. Poor 
soul, what wilt thou do in such a plight ? Thou must 
needs resolve to be eternally the food of worms. Thine 
own conscience upbraids thee with the state from 
which thou hast fallen. What a difference between 
the state of this torrent, when it was flowing pleas- 
antly over the plain, and now when it is plunging 
into frightful gulfs ! Yet this is its lot and its 
destiny. 

At length, by slow degrees, the soul gets used to 
its corruption ; it perceives it less, and it becomes 
natural to it, except at certain times when it exhales 
a stench enough to cause its death, were it not im- 
mortal. Poor torrent, wert thou not better off on 
the top of the mountain than now ! Thou hadst 
then some light corruption ; but now, though thou 
runnest rapidly and nothing checks thee, thou passest 
through places so dirty, so foul with sulphur, salt- 
petre, and every kind of filth, that thou earnest with 
thee their detestable stenches.* 

* A state of temptation respectively to the state after it is also as 
the state of a pit or a prison, filthy and unclean ; for when man is 
10 



138 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

14. At length the poor soul begins no longer to 
perceive its stench so grievously, to get accustomed 
to it, to continue in it quietly without hope of ever 
escaping from it,f and without being able to do any 
thing for this end ; and thus 'its members, its flesh, 
its entire self, is annihilated and becomes dust. Then 
it is that annihilation % begins ; for, before, what 



tempted, then unclean spirits are near him, and excite the evils and 
falses appertaining to him, and likewise detain him therein, and 
exaggerate even to despair : hence it is that man is then in an 
unclean and filthy state. This state also, when it is presented to 
view in the other life (all spiritual states can there be exhibited 
to the sight), appears as a mist exhaled from dirty places, and a 
stench likewise is thence perceived. Such is the appearance of the 
sphere which encompasses him who is in temptation, and also in 
vastation. — A. C. 5246. 

-f In this passage is described a state of desolation by the priva- 
tion of truth, the last of which state is desperation. That despera- 
tion is the last of that state is, because thereby is removed the delight 
of self-love, and the love of the world, and in the place of it is 
insinuated the delight of the love of good and of truth; for despera- 
tion with those to be regenerated relates to the spiritual life, conse- 
quently to the privation of truth and good ; for, when they are deprived 
of truth and good, they despair concerning the spiritual life. — 
A.C. 5279. 

X That the case is thus [that there are alternations of heat and 
cold], every regenerate person may know by experience, viz., that 
whilst he is in things corporeal and worldly, he is then absent and 
remote from things internal, so that he not only thinks nothing about 
them, but then feels in himself, as it were, a coldness; but when 
things corporeal and worldly are quiescent, that then he is in faith and 
charity. It may also be known by experience, that these states are 
alternate; wherefore when things corporeal and worldly begin to over- 
flow, and are desirous to gain dominion, then he comes into strait- 
nesses and temptations, until he is reduced to such a state that the 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 139 

stench so ever it emitted, there still remained some 
marks of humanity ; it was an offensive corpse, but 
still the remains of a man. But now there is noth- 
ing but ashes. The soul no longer suffers any thing 
from the ill odor ; it is naturalized to these things ; 
it ceases to look at any thing, and is like a person 
who is no more, and who never will be any more. It 
does neither good nor evil. 

15. Formerly, it was horrified at itself; now, it 
thinks no more about it. It is in the last degree of 
wretchedness without being affected with any horror 
at it. Formerly, it used to dread the Holy Com- 
munion from fear of infecting or dishonoring God ; 
now, it seems to approach it as a matter of course. 
All that is of grace is done as if from nature, and 
there is no longer any sense either of pain or of plea- 
sure. The only thing is, that its ashes rest in peace, 
without hoping ever to be any thing but ashes. While 
it perceived its stench, it was still aware that it was 
putrefying ; but now, it has gone through this state, 
and nothing either within or without affects it any 
longer. 

16. At length reduced to nonentity, there is found 
in its ashes a germ of immortality, which, preserved 
underneath them, will take life in due time.* But 



external man does obeisance to the internal, which it never can do 
until it is quiescent, and, as it were, is annihilated, — A. C. 933. 

* When the state is changed, and becomes inverse to the foregoing, 
then there is mourning ; for then they are let into temptation, whereby 
the things of the proprium are weakened and debilitated, and good is 



140 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

this it does not know, and it has no thought of being 
ever revived or resuscitated.* 

17. The faithfulness of the soul in this state con- 
sists in suffering itself to be buried, crushed, made 
to walk, without stirring any more than a dead person ; 
in enduring its own noisomeness in its grave ; and in 
suffering itself to putrefy in the full extent of the 
Divine will, without seeking any means of avoiding 
the putrefaction. Some would apply balm or essences, 
that they might not perceive the stench of their cor- 
ruption. No, no, poor souls; leave yourselves just 
what you are. Submit to the sense of your noisome- 
ness. It is requisite you should know it, and should 
see the bottomless abyss of corruption there is within 
you. By applying balm, I mean seeking, by some good 
and virtuous means, to cover over this corruption and 
prevent the stench of it. Oh ! do not thus ; you would 
be doing yourselves a mischief. God bears with you ; 
why should you not bear with yourselves ? If you 
look closely at the matter, you will even see, that 

insinuated; and with good a new will-desire, and with this a new 
freedom, thus a new proprium. — A. C. 5773. 

* " And he said, Peace be to you, fear not" [Gen. xliii. 23]. That it 
signifies that it is well, let them not despair, appears from the signi- 
fication of peace, as denoting to be well, of which in what follows ; 
and from the signification of ' fear not,' as being not to despair; for, in 
the internal sense, a change of state is treated of, that they should no 
longer procure to themselves truths by their own proper ability, and 
by truths good, but that they should be gifted with them from the 
Lord ; and whereas they supposed that so they should lose the pro- 
prium, thus freedom, consequently all the delight of life, they were 
in despair, as is evident from what goes before. — A. C. 5662. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 141 

what you do to remove this ill odor involves a kind of 
violence, and that it is more natural and better that 
you should perceive it. 

18. In my opinion the Director should give very 
little or no relief to such a person, especially if he 
has tolerable strength of mind ; if this should not be 
the case, it would be necessary to sustain him ; since 
otherwise he might be destroyed by the inwardness of 
his distress. For the pain of putrefaction goes to the 
very marrow of the bones. Other pains are more 
exterior, and do not penetrate so deeply.^ But as 
regards strong and able souls, the less they are suc- 
cored, sustained, and strengthened, the sooner they 
are reduced to dust. Do not, therefore, show them 
pity ; leave them in their apparent state of unclean- 
ness, — a state which yet is most pleasing to God, — 
until from these ashes there is born a new life. 

19. The soul reduced to nothingness ought to con- 
tinue therein, without wishing, when it is dust, to get 
out of this state, or desiring, as formerly, to live 
again. It should continue as something that no 
longer is. Then it is that the torrent plunges into 
the sea, and loses itself there, never again to find 
itself in itself, — having become one and the same 
thing with the sea itself. 

20. Then it is that this dead thing feels, by degrees, 
without feeling, that its ashes are reviving and taking 

* With those who have consciences, there arises hence [from 
infestation and combat] a dull or still pain ; but, with those who 
perception, an acute pah}; and so much the more acute, as the per- 
ception is more interior. — A. C. 1668. 



142 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

a new life. % But this takes place so gradually, that it 
appears like a dream, or a slumber in which we have 
had a delightful vision. There is, as it were, a worm 
forming itself from their ashes, and taking life by 
degrees. This constitutes the last degree, which is the 
beginning of the divine and truly interior life, which 
contains degrees without number, and in which the 
soul advances without limit,f in like manner as the 
torrent can always go further into the sea, and take 
more of its qualities to itself, the longer it dwells 
there. 

* For where they [those to be regenerated] are deprived of truth 
and good, they despair concerning the spiritual life : hence they have 
delight and blessedness when they emerge out of desperation. — 
A. C. 5279. 

f What is meant by the multiplication of truth from good is 
briefly to be told. When a man is in good, that is, in love towards 
his neighbor, then also he is in the love of truth : hence so far as he 
is in that good, so far he is affected with truth, for good is in truth as 
the soul in its body. As, therefore, good multiplies truth, so it propa- 
gates itself, and if it be the good of genuine charity, it propagates 
itself in truth and by truth indefinitely; for there is no end given 
either to good or truth, the infinite being in all and single things, 
because all and single things are from the infinite : nevertheless, that 
indefinite can never reach to the infinite, inasmuch as no proportion is 
given between the finite and the infinite. — A. C. 5356. 



SPIRITUAL TOEKENTS. 143 



CHAPTER IX. 



Fourth Degree of the passive way of faith, which" is the beginning of the 
divine life. 1 — 4. Passage from the human to the divine state, and to 
the resurrection of the soul in God in the divine life. 5 — 13. Description 
of this life and of its properties, gradations, identity, indifference ; senti- 
ments of the soul; its being in God; its peace, &c. 14 — 16. Its duty 
of faithful correspondence. 17 — 19. Power and views of the soul in 
reference to others, to itself, to its state, to its actions, its word, and 
its faults. 20—21. Of the inclinations of Jesus Christ in it. 22—27. 
Several observations to guard against mistake as to its progress, its crosses, 
its exterior. — Conclusion. 

1. When the torrent begins to lose itself in the 
sea, it can be distinguished for a considerable time. 
Its motion is visible, until, by degrees, it loses all 
its proper form, and assumes that of the sea. The 
soul, in like manner, leaving this degree and begin- 
ning to lose itself, still preserves for a time something 
proper to itself, but, after a while, loses every thing 
of this kind. A body that has gone through decay, 
even to a state of ashes, is still dust and ashes ; but, 
if any one should now swallow these ashes, there 
would remain nothing proper to it, since it would 
have become one and the same thing with the person 
taking them. The soul hitherto, however dead and 
putrefied, has retained its own proper essence, and 
has not lost it. It is only in this degree that it is 
truly taken out of itself.* 

* Then he is in self-annihilation, yea, in self-aversion, and thus 
in absence from himself, and thus in a state of receiving the Divine of 
the Lord. — A. C. 3994. 



144 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

All that has taken place hitherto, has taken place 
in the proper capacity of the creature ; but now the 
creature is taken out of its own capacity, and receives 
a boundless capacity in God Himself. As the tor- 
rent, for example, when it enters the sea, loses its 
own essence, so that there remains no longer any 
thing of it, and takes that of the sea (or, rather, is 
taken from itself to lose itself in the sea), the soul, 
in like manner, parts with the human, to lose itself in 
the Divine, which becomes its essence and its subsist- 
ence — not essentially, but mystically.* Then the tor- 
rent possesses all the treasures of the sea ; and the 
more poor and miserable it was, the more glorious it 
now is.f 

2. It is in this tomb, then, that the soul begins to 
recover life, and light makes its appearance by insen- 
sible degrees. Then it may be said with truth, " Those 
who were in darkness have seen a great light, and to 
them that sat in the region of the shadow of death 
has the day arisen," Matt. iv. 16. There is in Ezekiel 
a beautiful figure of this resurrection, where the dry 

* Man's proprium is wholly evil and false, and so long as it remains, 
so long man is dead; but when he undergoes temptations, then it is 
dispersed, that is, it is loosened and tempered by truths and goods 
from the Lord, and thus it is vivified, and appears as if it was not 
present. Its not appearing and not being any longer hurtful, is sig- 
nified by destroying (Gen. vii. 4), although it is never destroyed, but 
remains. — A. C. 731. 

■j- No one can have an exquisite perception of what is good, yea, 
of what is blessed and happy, unless he has been in a state of what 
is not good, not blessed, and not happy. From this he acquires a sphere 
of perception, and this in the degree in which he was in the opposite 
state.— -A. C. 2694. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 145 

bones recover life again by degrees. This other pas- 
sage is also applicable : " The hour cometh, and now 
is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Lord," 
John v. 25. 

3. Ye souls coming forth from the sepulchre, how do 
you feel in yourselves a germ of life springing up by 
insensible degrees ! You are all astonished to find a 
secret force taking possession of you. These ashes 
are reviving. You find yourselves in a new country. 
The poor soul whose only thought was to dwell 
quietly in the sepulchre experiences an agreeable sur- 
prise. It knows not what to believe and to think. 
It supposes that the sun has shot in his rays through 
some chink or opening for a little season, — but soon 
to pass. It is yet more astonished when it feels 
that this secret power is taking possession yet more 
strongly of its entire nature, and that by degrees it 
is receiving a new life never again to be lost ; * not 
that one can be perfectly assured against falling in 
this life, but because such a loss could not happen 
without the blackest unfaithfulness. But this new 
life is not like that formerly enjoyed; it is a "life 
in God," Col. iii. 3 ; it is perfect life. The soul 
" lives no longer," no longer operates by itself, but 
" God lives," acts, and works, Gal. ii. 20. This goes 
on increasing by degrees, so that the soul becomes 

* The spiritual man, who is made the sixth day, when he begins 
to be celestial, of which it is here first treated, is the evening of the 
Sabbath, which was represented in the Jewish church by the sanctifi- 
cation of the Sabbath from the evening: the celestial man is the 
morning which i3 spoken of presently. — A. C. 86. 



146 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

perfect with the perfection of God, rich with His 
riches, and loving with His love. 

4. The soul perceives well, that all it had before, 
great as it appeared, had been in its own possession. 
But now it possesses no longer, but is possessed. It 
no more is ; it takes a new life only to lose it in God, 
or, rather, it lives only with the life of God ; * and, He 
being the principle of life, the soul cannot want for 
any thing. What gain has it not made for all its 
losses ! It has lost the created for the uncreated, 
nothingness for all things ; all is given to it, not in 
itself, but in God, — not to be possessed by itself, but 
to be possessed by God. Its riches are boundless : 
they are God himself. It feels its capacity f perpetually 
increasing, growing in breadth and extent every day. 
Its capacity seems to be growing boundless.^ All the 
virtues are given back to it again, but in God. 

* The Divine Love is such that what is its own it wills should be 
another's, thus man's and angel's; all spiritual love is such, and 
most so the Divine Love. — D. P. 43. 

f Every one who is either damned or saved has a certain measure 
which is capable of being filled: the evil, or they who are damned, 
have a certain measure of evil and the false ; and the good, or they 
who are saved, have a certain measure of good and of truth. This 
measure with every one is filled in the other life; but some have a 
greater measure, some a lesser. This measure is procured in the 
world by the affections which are of the love: by how much the 
more any one had loved evil and the false thence, so much the greater 
measure he had procured to himself; and by how much the more any 
one had loved good and the truth thence, so much the greater is his 
measure. — A. C. 7984. 

^ During man's initiation into truth, and thence into good, all 
that he learns is obscure to him ; but when good is conjoined to him, 
and he thence regards truth, it then becomes clear to him, and this 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 147 

5. It is to observed, that as it was stripped by little 
and little, so it is enriched and revivified only by de- 
grees. The more it is lost in God, the greater becomes 
its capacity, — just as the torrent, the more it is lost 
in the sea, becomes the more enlarged and boundless, 
having no other limits than those of the sea itself:* 
it partakes then of all its qualities. The soul becomes 
strong, boundless, firm ; it has lost all means, but it 
is in the end, — just as a person who should walk on 
the earth to cast himself into the sea would make use 
of walking as a means to reach the sea, and then give 
it up to plunge himself therein. 

6. This divine life becomes altogether natural to 
the soul.f As the soul no longer feels itself, sees 

successively more and more ; for now he is no longer in doubt whether 
a thing be, or whether it be so, but he knows that it is, and that it is 
so. When man is in this state, he then begins to know innumerable 
things ; for he now proceeds from the good and truth which he believes 
and perceives, as from a centre to the circumferences ; and in propor- 
tion as he proceeds, in the same proportion he sees the things which 
are round about, and successively extends his views by a continual 
removal and dilatation of their boundaries. Thenceforth also he 
commences from every object in the space within these boundaries; 
and hence, as from new centres, he produces new circumferences, and 
so forth. Thence the light of truth from good increases immensely, 
and becomes as a continuous lucidity ; for he is then in the light of 
heaven, which is from the Lord. — A. C. 3833. 

* For the celestial are in truth itself, concerning which the spiri- 
tual dispute; and hence the celestial can see indefinite things apper- 
taining to that truth, and thus, by virtue of the light, they can see, 
as it were, the whole heaven. — A. C. 2715. 

f The more nearly man is conjoined to the Lord, the more dis- 
tinctly he appears to himself as if he was his own, and the more 
indirectly he takes notice that he is the Lord's. — D. P. 42. 



148 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

itself, knows itself, it sees nothing of God, compre- 
hends nothing of him, distinguishes nothing of him. 
There is nothing more of love, of lights, or of know- 
ledges. God no longer appears to it, as before, some- 
thing distinct from itself ; but it no longer knows any 
thing, except that God is, and that itself no longer 
is, no longer subsists and lives, except in Him. Here 
prayer is action, and action is prayer ; * every thing 
is indifferent ; all is one and the same to this soul, for 
all alike is God to it. 

7. Formerly, it was necessary to practise virtue in 
order to do virtuous works ; f now, all distinction 
among actions is taken away, actions having no lon- 
ger any proper virtues, but every thing being God to 
the soul. The meanest action is so as well as the 
highest, provided it be in the order of God and in 
the divine movement ; J for any thing which should be 

* When man is of such a quality, then in every work which he does 
there is divine worship ; for then he has respect to the divine in every 
thing ; he venerates and he loves it, consequently he worships it. — 
A.C. 10,143. 

t The good of the will consists in doing good from good, but the 
good of the understanding in doing good from truth. These goods 
appear as one to those who do good from truth, but still they differ 
much from each other; for to do good from good is to do it from a per- 
ception of good, which perception is given with none but the celestial ; 
whereas, to do good from truth is to do it from science and intellect 
thence derived, but without perception that it is so, only because the 
person has been so instructed by others, or has concluded so of him- 
self by his intellectual faculty, which may be fallacious truth. — 
A.C. 4169. 

X As far, therefore, as man lives in those commandments, so far 
he lives in divine order; and as far as he lives in divine order, so 
far all things are disposed in him by the Lord, according to the 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 149 

from proper choice, if it be not in this order, would 
not be attended with the same effect, but would cause 
the soul to go out from God by reason of unfaithful- 
ness. This does not mean that the soul goes out of 
its degree, or of the state of being lost to itself, but 
only out of the divine movement, which makes all 
things one and all things God, not by view, applica- 
tion, and thought, but by state,* so that the soul is 
indifferent to being in one way or another. All 
is the same to it, and it gives itself up thereto, as it 
were, naturally. 

8. This life becomes, so to speak, natural; and the 
soul acts, as it were, naturally. f It gives itself up to 
all that impels it, without being troubled about any 
thing ; without thinking, willing, or choosing any 
thing.J It remains well-pleased, without care or con- 
cern about itself, not thinking any more about itself,§ 

order which is from him in the heavens, viz., both his rationals and 
his scientifics. — A. C. 2634. 

* The human itself, and hence the angelic, is to think from the 
truth ; and this is truth, that man does not think from himself, but 
that it is given him to think from the Lord, in all appearance as from 
himself.— D. P. 321. 

f For the Lord wills to communicate to every one what is his; 
thus the celestial, so that it may appear to man as his own, although 
it is not his. — A. C. 1937. 

X But the third or inmost degree is opened with those who imme- 
diately apply divine truths to life, and do not first reason concerning 
them from the memory, and thereby bring them into doubt. This is 
called the celestial degree. — A. E. 739. 

§ When, therefore, those truths are conjoined to good, then man 
is regenerated ; for then he no longer looks from truths at what is to 
be believed and what is to be done, but from good, because he is 
imbued with truths, and has them in himself; nor has he concern 



150 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

and not distinguishing its interior in order to speak 
of it. The soul has nothing of all this. It has no 
further thought about recollection or wandering. The 
soul is no longer within, it is altogether in God. It is 
no longer necessary for it to shut itself up in its inte- 
rior ; it no longer thinks about finding Him there ; it 
does not seek for Him there any more. If a person were 
all surrounded by the sea, within and without, below 
and above, if the sea were on all sides, he would have 
no choice of one place more than another, but need 
only remain as he is : even so it is with the soul. 

9. Accordingly, this soul gives itself no concern to 
seek any thing or to do any thing. It continues as it 
is, and that is enough. — But what does it do ? — Noth- 
ing, is the constant answer, nothing, nothing. It does 
all that it is made to do. It suffers all that it is made 
to suffer. Its peace is unchangeable, but entirely 
natural ; it has passed, as it were, into a thing of 
nature. — But what difference is there between this 
person and a person all in the human 1 — The differ- 
ence is, that it is God who causes it to act,*' without 
its knowing it ;f whereas, before, it was nature which 

about truths from any other source than what he can see from his own 
good, and he sees continually more and more, for they are produced 
thence as offsprings from their parents. — A. C. 8772. 

* But they who are regenerated, because they are in good itself, 
they are able to perceive, from the intelligence and wisdom thence 
derived, what good is, and that it is from the Lord, and that it flows 
in through the internal man into the external, and this continually, 
man being altogether ignorant thereof. — A. C. 3325. 

f In all these cases, the ruling principle is perpetually present [in 
the minutest particulars], though the man is not conscious of it. In 
like manner is the presence of the Lord with the celestial angels; 
they do not know it, still it is the Lord's presence. — A. C. 4226. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 151 

acted. It does, as appears to it, neither good nor 
evil ; but lives satisfied, peaceable, doing in a ready 
and unwavering manner whatever it is made to do. 

God alone is its guide ; for, at the time of its giving 
up all things, it lost all will. The soul now no lon- 
ger has any will proper to itself; and, if you should 
ask it what it willed, it could not tell. It can no 
longer exercise any choice. All desires are taken 
away ; because, being in the all and in the centre, the 
heart loses all proclivity, bias, and activity, as it loses 
all repugnance and contrariety.* The torrent no 
longer has a career or movement. It is at rest, being 
in its end. 

10. But what is the nature of the contentment with 
which the heart is thus pervaded 1 — It is the content- 
ment of God himself, boundless, general, without 
knowing or understanding what satisfies it ; for now, 
all sentiments, tastes, views, particular observations, 
however delicate, are taken away ; nothing touches 
it, neither love, nor knowledge, nor intelligence. 
That certain something, which formerly occupied it 
without occupying it, is removed, and there is nothing 
left it. 

* Whoever lives in good, and believes that the Lord governs the 
universe, and that from him alone comes all the good which is of 
love and charity, and all the truth which is of faith, yea, that from 
him comes life, thus that from him we live, move, and have our 
being, he is in such a state that he can be gifted with heaveDly free- 
dom, and therewith also with peace ; for then he trusts only in the 
Lord, and counts other things of no concern, and is certain that then 
all things tend to his good, blessedness, and happiness to eternity. — 
A. C. 2892. 



152 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

But this insensibility is very different from that of 
death, of the grave, of corruption. At that time it 
was a privation of life, and of inclination towards 
things, a disgust, a separation, an impotence as of a 
dying person, an insensibility as of one dead; but 
now it is an elevation above these things, which does 
not deprive of them, but makes them of no account. 
A dead person is deprived of all the functions of life, 
but by that impotence which death occasions, or that 
disgust which belongs to the dying ; but if he is 
raised up in glory, he is all full of life, without the 
means of preserving that life by making use of the 
senses ; and, being above all means by the germ of 
immortality he possesses, he does not feel what ani- 
mates him, although he sees himself to be in life.* 

11. I cannot express this better than by comparing 
it to death. When one dies, he feels the separation of 
his soul from his body. When the soul thus sepa- 
rates itself, there is no longer any sensation : he is 
without life, and death makes a separation from all. 
But, when the man is raised up, he feels himself revi- 
vified. When he is re-animated, he experiences in his 
new state that God is the soul of his soul, the life of 
his life, in such way that He makes Himself the, as it 
were, natural principle of it, without the soul's feel- 

* The appropriation of the life of the Lord comes from His love 
and mercy towards the universal human race, in that He wills to give 
Himself and what is His to every one, and that He actually gives so far 
as they receive ; that is, so far as they act in the life of good and in 
the life of truth, as likenesses and images of him. And whereas such 
a divine effort proceeds continually from the Lord, therefore His life, 
as was said, is appropriated. — A. C. 3742. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 153 

ing or perceiving it by reason of its unity and its 
intimateness, if I may use the word. The soul feels 
that it lives, acts, walks, and performs all the func- 
tions of life, but without feeling its soul.* 

12. When we have some delight in God, however 
subtle it may be ; when we know our interior retire- 
ments, certain languors, pains, loves, desires, enjoy- 
ments, these things do not constitute the degree I am 
speaking of, but quite another. For, in this, God 
cannot be tasted, felt, seen, because he is more our- 
selves than ourselves, is not distinct from us.f If a 
person could live without eating, in great disgust for 
food, he would at first feel the disgust, and afterwards 
the impossibility of eating, but he would not feel any 
fulness. Here the soul has no inclination or relish 
for any thing. Something like this takes place, indeed, 
in the state of death and burial, but still there is a 
difference. There, the want of appetite was from dis- 
gust and impotence, but here, it is from plenitude and 

* In all these cases the ruling principle is perpetually present [in 
the minutest particulars], though the man is not conscious of it. In 
like manner is the presence of the Lord with the celestial angels ; they 
do not know it, still it is the Lord's presence. Consequently, when 
it is said that the Lord is continually to be thought of, this that I 
have now described is what is meant by it; not that man is to hold 
his thoughts perpetually and sensibly on that one theme, which may 
however be done on the outset [and be persisted in] until such a habit 
of unconscious continuity is acquired. — A. D. 4226. 

f The celestial man cannot think but from perception, and the 
spiritual man cannot think but from conscience: the perception of 
the former, like conscience, is from the Lord, and it does not appear 
to him whence it is ; but the thought of the latter is from the rational, 
and appears to him as from himself. — A. C. 2552. 
11 



154 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

abundance; just as, if a person could live on air, lie 
would be full without feeling his fulness, nor how it 
had come to him. He would not be empty, nor 
unable to eat or to taste, but only free from any neces- 
sity of eating, by reason of fulness, without his 
knowing how the air, entering through all his pores, 
should so pervade him. 

13. The soul, in this state, is in God as in the 
atmosphere proper and natural to it for the mainte- 
nance of its new life, and it no more feels Him than 
we feel the air which we breathe. Nevertheless, it is 
full, and nothing is lacking to it, and this is the reason 
why all desires are taken away from it. 

Its peace is great, but not as in other states.* In 
the state which has been passed through, it was an 
inanimate peace ; a certain state of burial whence there 
issued, at times, exhalations which disturbed it. In 
the state of dust it was in peace, but an unfruitful 
peace, as if a dead body should be in peace amid the 
storms of the sea and its most furious waves. It 
would not feel them nor be troubled about them ; its 
dead state makes it insensible. But in the case we 
are considering, the soul is placed high above them, as 
if it were surveying the waves, and listening to their 
fury from the top of a mountain, without fearing 
their assaults ; or, if you will, as if one were at the 
bottom of the sea, which is always tranquil, whilst 

* He who is gifted with a heavenly proprium is also in tranquillity 
and in peace ; for he trusts in the Lord, and believes that nothing of 
evil befalls him, and knows that concupiscences do not infest him. — 
A. C. 5660. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 155 

the surface was in agitation. The senses may suffer 
pain, but the inmost of the soul maintains its equa- 
nimity, because He who possesses it is immutable. 

14. This supposes the faithfulness of the soul ; for, 
in whatever state it is, it may fall therefrom and 
relapse into itself. But here the soul makes advances 
almost boundless in God, and can advance incessantly ; 
just as, if the sea were without bottom, a person 
fallen into it would go deeper and deeper for ever, and, 
the further he descended into the ocean, the more of 
its beauties and treasures he would discover. Thus 
it is with the soul in God.* 

15. But what must it do to be faithful to God? 
Nothing, and less than nothing. It should give itself 
up to be possessed, acted, moved without resistance, 
to continue in its natural, consistent state, awaiting 
the events of each moment and receiving them from 
Providence without augmenting or diminishing any 
thing ; suffering itself to be led in every thing with- 
out sight or reason, and without reflection ; being 
moved, as it were, by instinctive impulse, without 
thought about the better or more perfect way, but 
yielding itself up to all impulses, as it were, quite 
naturally ; continuing in the equal and consistent 
state in which God has placed it, without troubling 

* In the former [the celestial] it is given to know, acknowledge, 
and perceive, that the affections of good are innumerable, like the 
societies in heaven. — A. C. 2718. 

They who are in the affection of good, from perception know that 
it is so [that he who loves his neighbor from good, loves the Lord], and 
immediately see an open field of wisdom leading even to the Lord. — 
A. C. 2718. 



156 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

itself to do any thing, but leaving to God the care 
of originating occasions, and of executing them ; not 
making acts of abandonment, but continuing therein 
by state. 

16. The soul cannot act, in ever so small a measure, 
without being guilty of an unfaithfulness; just as, 
in the state of death and putrefaction, it ought to 
suffer itself to putrefy without doing or desiring 
to do any thing. The man who is expiring perceives 
a disgust at all the means which might support his 
life ; next, an inability to make use of them ; lastly, 
he dies, and every thing becomes useless to him. In 
all these states, it requires great faithfulness to suffer 
one's self to be stripped, to quit nourishment when dis- 
gust supervenes, and to leave all things at the right 
time, however subtle they may be. But now the 
soul has all without having any thing. It has facility 
for all that belongs to its duty ; for acting, for speak- 
ing, and for doing, — no longer in its own way, but 
in God's way. Faithfulness, here, does not consist 
in ceasing from every thing, like one dead, but in 
doing nothing except from the vivifying principle by 
which it is animated. A soul in this state has no 
bias for any thing, but yields itself to the will that 
governs it, and does nothing but occupy the state 
it is put into, without care or concern upon the 
subject.* 

* They who are in the perception of the Lord's presence are in 
the perception that all and single things which befall them tend to 
their good, and that evils do not reach them; hence they are in 
tranquillity. — A. C. 6963. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 157 

17. The soul cannot speak about its state, since it 
does not see it, though it does see the actions of life 
which it exercises. For, although there are then many 
extraordinary things in its experience, they are no 
longer what they were in its preceding states, when 
the creature had some share in them (which was being 
proprietary). But now the most divine and wonder- 
ful things are, as it were, quite natural to the soul ; * 
it does them without thinking of them ; the same 
principle which gives life to the soul does them in it 
and by it.f It has, as it were, a sovereign power 
over evil spirits, J and even over the spirits of persons 
with whose interests it is charged, — but all out of 

* When they [truths] are in the interior man, he then no longer 
acts from the memory, but from the bent of his inclination ; till at 
length the things insinuated flow spontaneously into acts, being 
inscribed on the interior memory; and what comes forth from this 
appears as if it were innate. — A. C. 3843. 

f But when he [man] loses this freedom, he then receives from 
the Lord heavenly freedom, which is a thing altogether unknown to 
those who are in the freedom derived from the proprium; these latter 
suppose that if this freedom were to be taken away from them, there 
would nothing of life remain, when nevertheless their real life com- 
mences; and real delight, blessedness and happiness with wisdom, 
then comes, because this freedom is from the Lord. — A. C. 5786. 

X In combats of temptations, it is permitted evil spirits to bring 
forth all the evil and false with man, and to combat from that ground ; 
but when they are conquered, it is no longer allowed them to do so; 
for they instantly perceive in man, that good and truth is confirmed. 
Such is the perception of spirits, and so superior to that of men. 
From the very sphere of a man confirmed in truth and good, they 
know instantly how the case is, what answer they will receive, and 
other things. This appears evidently with a regenerate spiritual man ; 
with whom evil spirits are alike present, as with an unregenerate 
man, but then they are subjugated and serve. — A. C. 1695. 



158 SPIKITUAL TORRENTS. 

itself. As it is no longer proprietary, it has no longer 
any reserve ; and if it cannot say any thing about a 
state so sublime, it is not because it is afraid of vanity, 
which has no longer any existence ; neither is it for 
want of light to express itself, as in the lower degrees. 
It is because that which it has, without having any 
thing, passes all expression by its extreme simplicity 
and purity.*' This does not hinder but that there may 
occur a thousand things which are, as it were, the 
accidents of this state, and not of its essence, of which 
it can speak very well.f These accidents are, as it 
were, the crumbs that fall from the eternal feast which 
the soul begins in time. They are the sparks which 
give token that there is there a source of fire and 
flames; but to speak of their beginning and their 

* Those affections do not come in the understanding under any 
species of ideas, but to the interior sensative perception, under a 
species of delights of the will, which cannot possibly be described by 
words.— A. E. 826. 

The reason why they [celestial angels] appear simple is because 
they cannot speak concerning the holy things of heaven and the 
church ; for those things with them are not in the memory, whence all 
discourse comes, but in the life, and thence in the understanding; not 
as thought, but as the affection of good in its form, which does not 
descend into discourse, and, if it should descend, would not speak but 
only express a tone. — A. E. 829. 

t Hence it is evident what love towards the neighbor is in the 
third heaven. As for other things which concern the moral, civil, 
and domestic life, these also are works which they do from affection; 
but they are not such works as they understand by neighbor or 
brother, and companion, for they derive somewhat from the world, 
likewise from what is useful for themselves and their own ; they are 
the derivations and productions of the uses before mentioned, and are 
such things as proceed from their thought, concerning which therefore 
they can discourse. — A. E. 828. 



SPIRITUAL TOBRENTS. 159 

end, it is neither able to do this, nor desire it, hav- 
ing no knowledge of them, except so far as it pleases 
God to give that knowledge at the moment of speak- 
ing or writing. 

Does not the soul see its faults ? or does it not 
commit any ? It commits them, * and knows them 
better than ever ; especially at the beginning of this 
new life. Those which it commits are much more 
subtle and delicate than formerly. It knows them 
better because it has its eyes open ; but it is not con- 
cerned about them, and can do nothing to get rid of 
them. It is sensible, indeed, when it has been guilty 
of some unfaithfulness, or has committed a fault, of a 
certain cloud, or of the rising up of a kind of dust ; 
but this dust falls of itself, the soul doing nothing 
either to make it fall, or to cleanse itself from its 
effects. f All such endeavors of the soul would, at 

* Such progressions and derivations are perpetual with the man 
who is regenerated, from his infancy even to the last of his life in 
the world, and also afterwards, even to eternity ; and yet he can 
never be so regenerated as that in any measure he may be said to be 
perfect. — A. C. 5122. 

f For I have been now for four years in such a state that I have 
neither thought nor spoken any thing from myself; but I still see that 
when I seem to be, as it were, myself in thinking or speaking, yet 
upon inquiry there are others immediately found who have prompted 
it. When I spake with them, therefore, in the morning, after they 
had considered awhile, it was given to say that this was well, inasmuch 
as if there is any thing evil thought or spoken, it is not mine, but 
proceeds from evil spirits, wherefore it is not appropriated by me. If 
I should believe that it was from myself, the evil would be properly 
appropriated by me, and thus I should add actual evil to actual evil. 
On the contrary, whatever is good is from the Lord ; so that as I do 
not attribute merit to myself from thinking, speaking, or doing good, 



160 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

this time, be useless, and would even serve only to 
increase its impurity, so that the soul would feel the 
second contamination to be worse than the first. All 
idea of return is out of the question here, because, in 
saying return, we presuppose alienation, and if we are 
in God, it is only needful that we remain in Him. The 
case is as when there arises some little cloudiness in 
the middle region of the atmosphere ; if the wind then 
blows, it moves the clouds, but does not scatter them, 
— rather the contrary. We must leave the sun to 
scatter them himself. The more subtle and delicate 
the clouds are, the sooner he does it.* 

18. Oh, if the soul were sufficiently faithful never 
to regard itself, what advances would it not make ! f 

so neither do I commit sin therein. He, therefore, who is of such a 
character as to believe that the fact is as it is, that is, who is in true 
faith, or in the truth of faith, he is guiltless of then committing sin ; 
and whatever evil he seems to himself to do, believing still the truth 
of the case to be what it is, that there are evil spirits who have been 
present and persuaded him to it, the evil is not thus appropriated to 
him. — S.D. 4228. 

* There are with man* clouds so large and so dense, that, were he 
aware of them, he would wonder how the rays of light from the Lord 
could ever pass through them, so that he could be regenerated. Such 
are the clouds abiding with the spiritual man; but with the celestial 
man they are not so large, because he is principled in love towards 
the Lord, and this love being implanted in his will part, he therefore 
does not receive conscience like the spiritual man, but the perception 
of goodness and thereby of truth from the Lord. — A. C. 1044. 

f As to what concerns the heavenly proprium, it exists from the 
new will which is given by the Lord, and differs from man's proprium 
in this, that they no longer regard themselves in all and single things 
which they do, and in all and single things which they learn and 
teach; but they then regard the neighbor, the public, the church, the 
kingdom of the Lord, and so the Lord himself. — A. C. 5660. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 161 

Its own proper views are, as it were, little shrubs 
which sustain it in the sea, and hinder it from de- 
scending deeper, as long as their support lasts. If 
their branches are very delicate, the weight of the 
body breaks them down, and the soul is stopped only 
for a few moments ; but if, by some notable unfaith- 
fulness, the soul should look at itself voluntarily, and 
for a length of time, it would be stopped as long as 
its self-regard continued, and its loss would be very 
great. 

19. The faults of this state are certain slight emo- 
tions or views of self, which are born and die the 
same moment; certain breezes of self-regard, which, 
passing over this tranquil sea, produce wrinkles on 
•its surface. But these faults are dissipated by degrees, 

and become continually more and more subtle. 

20. The soul, on leaving the tomb, finds itself — 
without knowing how it has come to pass, and with- 
out thinking of it — clothed with all the inclinations 
of Jesus Christ ; and this, not by distinct* views 
or practices, but by state, finding them all on any 
occasion when they are necessary to be acted, with- 
out thought of its own ; just as a person who has a 
treasure locked up, without thinking about it, finds it 
in time of need. The soul is surprised, that, without 
having reflected on the states of Jesus Christ nor on 
His inclinations, for ten, twenty, or thirty years, it yet 
finds them imprinted on itself by states. These incli- 
nations of Jesus Christ are humility, poverty, submis- 

* Thence the light of truth from good increases immensely and 
becomes as a continuous lucidity. — A. C. 3833. 



162 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

sion, and His other virtues. The soul finds that every 
thing demanded by these virtues takes place within 
itself; but so easily, that it seems as if they had 
become natural to it.* 

21. Then it is that its treasure is in God alone, 
from whom it draws continually and without end 
what is suitable to itself, without any diminution or 
drying up of the source. f Then it is truly clothed 
with Jesus Christ. It is properly He who is acting, 
speaking, and conversing in the soul ; our Lord 
Jesus Christ being the principle of its movements. 
For this reason, the neighbor is no more a trial to it ; 
its heart enlarges every day to contain him. It has 
no longer any inclination either for action or for retire- 
ment ; it desires only to be what it is made to be 
each moment. 

22. As the soul can make boundless advances in 
this state, J I leave it to those who know them by 
experience to describe them ; the necessary light not 

* Conjunction with truth, therefore, cannot take place with man 
until those things which he has imbibed by doctrines are insinuated 
from the external man into the interior. When they are in the 
interior man, he then no longer acts from the memory, but from the 
bent of his inclination, till at length the things insinuated flow spon- 
taneously into acts, being inscribed on the interior memory, and what 
comes forth from this appears as if it were innate. — A. C. 3833. 

f When man is in this state [when good is conjoined to him], he 
then begins to know innumerable things. — A. C. 3833. 

X The apperception of truth is from good, inasmuch as the Lord 
is in good and gives apperception ; when he thence receives truth, it 
then increases indefinitely; the case herein is like that of a little 
seed, which grows into a tree, and produces little seeds, and these 
next produce a garden, and so on. — A. C. 5355. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 163 

being given me as regards its higher degrees, and my 
soul not being sufficiently advanced in God to see 
them or know them. I will only say, that it is easy 
to see, by the length of time required for those steps 
which the soul must take in order to attain to God, 
that we do not reach it so quickly as we think for ; 
and that the most spiritual and enlightened souls mis- 
take the consummation of the passive state of light 
and love for the end of the one we are considering, 
whereas it is only the beginning of it. The reason 
why souls do not advance is because they do not suf- 
fer themselves to be sufficiently stripped, or because 
they do it too early. 

23. As long as one finds delight in any given 
practice or prayer, it should never be left, — never, 
until there comes a disrelish for it, together with a 
certain difficulty and pain in doing it ; for to wait for 
absolute inability is to wait for miracles. God gives 
such miracles only to certain souls, which have not 
the requisite light for this stripping, and who have no 
person to instruct them thereto ; for which end He 
causes them, of His absolute power, to do what they 
do not know. 

24. It is to be observed, that, in the way of light 
and passive love, there are drynesses, aridity, pains, 
wearinesses ; but they are neither of the duration nor 
the quality of those I have described in the way of 
naked faith. Wherefore care should be taken not to 
mistake here. It belongs to the director to judge of 
all. Happy the soul which finds an experienced one. 

25. It must also be observed, that what I say of 



164 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

the inclinations of Jesus Christ begins as soon as 
the way of naked faith begins ; although the soul, 
throughout all its way, has no distinct views of Jesus 
Christ, it has yet a desire to conform itself to His 
states. It desires the cross, humility, poverty ; after- 
wards this desire disappears, and there remains a 
leaning or secret inclination for the same things, 
which grows continually deeper and deeper, acquiring 
simplicity, and becomes, day by day, more intimate 
and more hidden. 

But inclination, bias, tendency, however delicate 
they may be, are terms which imply something which 
is not possessed, and which is without us. But now 
the inclinations of Jesus Christ constitute the state of 
the soul, are proper to it, habitual, and, as it were, 
natural. They are as things not different from itself, 
but as its own proper essence, and proper life ; Jesus 
Christ exercising them Himself without going out 
from Himself, and. the soul exercising them with Him 
and in Him, without going out from Him ; exer- 
cising them not as something distinct, which it knows, 
sees, proposes, practises, but as something most natu- 
ral to it. All the actions of life, such as respiration, 
&c, are done naturally, without thinking about them ; 
not by rule or measure, but according to need, — and 
all without special purpose on the part of the person 
doing them. It is the same as regards the inclina- 
tions of Jesus Christ in this degree ; and this state is 
continually growing, in proportion as the soul is trans- 
formed into Him, and becomes one and the same thing 
with Him. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 165 

26. But are there, then, no crosses in this state 1 
As the soul is strong, with the strength of God him- 
self, God gives it yet more crosses, and heavier ones 
than before ; but it bears them divinely. Formerly, 
the cross delighted the soul, and it loved and che- 
rished it ; but now it thinks no more about it ; it suf- 
fers it to come and go. The cross becomes, like every 
thing else, God to it, though this does not prevent 
suffering, but only the pain, the trouble, the deep 
occupation of suffering. Crosses are crosses no more ; 
they are God ; and, for this reason, they do not sanc- 
tify but divinize. In other states, the cross is virtue, 
and is prominent in proportion as the state is ad- 
vanced ; but in this, it is God to the soul, as also is 
every thing else ; all that makes the life of the soul, all 
that it has from moment to moment being God to it.* 

27. The exterior of these persons is quite common, 
and nothing extraordinary is to be seen in it. The 
more they advance, the more free they become, having 
nothing uncommon which appears externally, except 
to those who are capable of receiving it. Here all is 
seen, without seeing, in God, such as it really is.f It 

* There are several kinds of temptations, which in general are 
celestial, spiritual, and natural, which ought not in the least to be 
confounded. In the case of those who are in love towards the Lord, 
whatever assaults this love produces an inmost torture, which is 
celestial temptation. In the case of those who are in love towards 
the neighbor or charity, whatever assaults this love produces torment 
of conscience, and this is spiritual temptation. — A. C. 847. 

t They [the celestial] know instantly, by a certain internal ani- 
madvertence, whether a thing be good, and whether it be true ; for 
the Lord insinuates this, inasmuch as they are conjoined to the Lord 
by love. — A. C. 2831. 



166 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

is for this reason that this state is not subject to delu- 
sion.* There are no visions, revelations, ecstacies, 
ravishments, changes. All this belongs not to this 
state, which is quite above it all. This way is simple, 
pure, and naked, seeing nothing except in God, as 
God sees it, and by His eyes. 



CONCLUSION OP THE AUTHOR IN THE FORM OF A LETTER TO 
HER CONFESSOR. 

It is not permitted me to go on here, there being a 
total blank [in my thoughts]. I believe I have drawn 
too much from my natural light. f You will easily 
distinguish such passages. I have made reflections 
to the effect that it was perhaps more from nature 
than from grace that I have been impelled to write ; 
and I desire, indeed, here to make my confession of 
this, and frankly to avow that I have even committed, 
towards the conclusion, some faults ; having retained 
in my memory certain lights in regard to this state, 
which had come to me in prayer, instead of losing 

* What perception is at this day is a thing most unknown, because 
at this day no one is in the perception in which the ancients were, 
and particularly the most ancient; the latter of whom, from percep- 
tion, knew whether a thing was good, and consequently whether it 
was true. There was an influx into their rational from the Lord, 
through heaven, whereby instantly, when they thought concerning 
any thing holy, they perceived whether it was so, or whether it was 
not so.— A.C. 2144. 

f The state of the celestial man is, that he is in good, and from 
good knows all truths, and never thinks and speaks from truths con- 
cerning good, still less from scientifics concerning good. — A. C. 3301. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 167 

them.* Moreover, I have not distinguished, in the 
state that I am in, what is natural and what is divine, 
what is God and what my own. I pray God that He 
will show it to you. 

I have not read this paper after writing it, and I 
have been much interrupted. When I left the sense 
unfinished, I read over a line or two, or a few words, 
in order to continue. I know not if I have done 
against your wishes. This has happened to me at 
times, but I have not read it over afterwards. I have 
not been careful to say every thing about the several 
states, or to avoid repetitions. I leave all this to your 
discernment, praying our Lord to enlighten you, that 
you may distinguish the false from the true, and what 
my self-love has sought to mix with His light. 

* For the men of the celestial church are such, that they perceive 
all the truths and goods of heaven from the Lord, by influx into their 
interiors, whence they see goods and truths inwardly in themselves, 
as implanted, and have no need to learn them by a posterior way, or 
to treasure them up in their memory. — A. E. 739. 



END OP PART FIRST. 



PART II. 



CHAPTER I. 

More particular description of several properties of the resuscitated and 
divine life. 1, 2. True liberty and resuscitated life distinguished from 
what is not such. Job a figure of it. 3. Beginning of the apostolic life. 
Facility of its functions ; counsel not to enter upon it from, one's self; 
its fruits. 4. How virtue is practised in it, especially humility. 5—8. It 
is common in outward appearance. Its ecstatic joy. Blessedness of being 
lost in God, and of abandoning one's self to God. 9—11. Perfect aban- 
donment rarely practised, which results from the prudence of our own 
wisdom, under pretence of the glory of God. A ray of glory escaped from 
the interior. 

1. I had forgotten to say that this is the state in 
which true liberty* is given ; not a liberty, as some 
think it, which deprives or exempts one from doing 
things. This is rather a privation than liberty ; for 
such persons believe themselves free, because, having 
a disrelish for good things, they no longer practise 
them. The liberty I speak of is not of this nature ; 
the soul has a facility for all things which are in the 
order of God and of its state, and it does them 

* He who is in the heavenly proprium i3 in freedom itself; for to 
be led of the Lord is freedom, and he is led in good from good to good ; 
hence it may be manifest that such are in blessedness and in happiness* 
for there is nothing which disturbs. — A. C. 5660. 
12 



170 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

the more easily, the longer and the more painfully it 
has been deprived of them. 

I confess that I do not understand the state of 
resuscitation and divine life spoken of by some per- 
sons, who remain, notwithstanding, all their days in 
impotence and the loss of all ; for, in this state, the 
soul is restored to true life. The actions of a man 
raised up from the dead are actions of life ; and if the 
soul, after its resurrection, continues to be without 
life, it is, in my opinion, dead or buried, but not raised 
up. To be raised up, the soul ought to do the same 
actions it used to do before its losses, and do them 
without any difficulty ; only doing them in God. 
Did not Lazarus, after his resurrection, perform all 
the functions of life as before 1 And Jesus Christ, 
after His resurrection, was pleased even to eat and to 
converse with men. This will serve as an example. 
Accordingly, I say of those who believe themselves to 
be in God, and who yet are straitened and cannot 
pray, that they are not raised up. For here every 
thing is restored to the soul a hundred fold.* 

2. There is a beautiful figure of this in Job, whom 
I look upon as a mirror of the whole spiritual life.f 
You see how God strips him of his goods, which are 

gifts and graces ; then of his children, which is strip- 

i 

* When man, by the truths of faith, is being introduced to the 
good of charity, he then undergoes temptations ; but, when he is in 
the good of charity, temptations cease, for then he is in heaven. — 
A. C. 8968. 

f That the book of Job is a book of the ancient church is evident, 
as has been mentioned, from the representative and figurative style 
in it. — A.C. 3540. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 171 

ping him of his faculties or good works, these being 
our children and our dearest productions ; next God 
takes from him his health, by which is meant the loss 
of the virtues ; then he makes him to putrefy, render- 
ing him an object of horror, of infection, and of con- 
tempt ; it seems, even, as if this holy man committed 
faults, and that he was deficient in resignation. He 
is accused by his friends of being justly punished by 
reason of his crimes ; there remains no sound part in 
him. But after he has rotted on the dunghill, and 
there remains nothing but his bones, and he is a mere 
corpse, God does not give him back every thing, goods, 
children, health, and life. 

It is the same after the resurrection ; all is given 
back, together with an admirable facility in making 
use of them, without incurring defilement, without 
attaching one's self to them, and without appropria- 
ting them as formerly. All is done in God, divinely, 
using things as not using them. In this state there 
is true liberty and true life. " If ye have been like 
to Jesus Christ in his death, you shall be like him in 
his resurrection," Rom. vi. 5. Is it being free to be 
under inability and restrictions 1 No. " If the Son 
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed " (John 
viii. 36), but free with His own liberty. 

3. Here it is that the apostolic life begins. "With- 
out at all injuring one's self, nothing that God wills 
is hard ; and, if a person is called to instruct, to preach, 
&c, he does it with a wonderful facility, which costs 
him nothing, and without its being necessary for him 
to prepare his discourse, since he is well able to prac- 



172 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

tise what our Lord Jesus Christ says to His disciples, 
that " they should not think beforehand of what they 
should say, but that, when it was time to speak, He 
would give them a wisdom which no one should be 
able to resist," Matt. x. 19. 

This is given only at a late period, and after dread- 
ful inabilities have been endured ; and, the more severe 
they have been, the greater the liberty. But one 
must not put himself in this state of himself; for, as 
God would not be the principle of such a state, the 
result would not be what was aimed at.* 

Those who are in this state effect wonderful conver- 
sions, without thinking about them. It may indeed 
be said of this resurrection life, " that all things good 
are given with it," Wisdom, vii. 11. 

4. In this state, the soul cannot practise virtue as 
virtue ; it cannot even see or distinguish it. The 
virtues have become, as it were, habitual and natural 
to it, so that it practises them all without seeing or 
knowing them, and without being able to apply itself 
to them, or to make any distinction among them.f 

* " And the men made a residue of it until morning " [Ex. xvi. 
20.] That it signifies abuse of good divine, in that they were •wil- 
ling to procure it of themselves for themselves, appears from the 
signification of making a residue until the morning, as denoting to 
be solicitous about the acquirement of good of themselves (see above, 
n. 8478), consequently denoting abuse of Good divine; it is called 
abuse when what is alike exists in ultimates, but from a contrary 
origin. Good exists from a contrary origin when from man, not from 
the Lord. — A. C. 8480. 

f The case is this with the iniation of truth into good, that, before 
truth is initiated and rightly conjoined, it is indeed with man, but 
is not made as of him, or as his property ; but, as soon as it is initiated 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 173 

When it hears some one uttering words of humility, 
and greatly abasing himself, it is all surprised and 
astonished to discover that itself does not practise the 
like. It starts as from a lethargy ; and, if it should try 
to humble itself, it would be rebuked for it as for an 
unfaithfulness. Indeed, it would be unable to accom- 
plish it ; because the state of annihilation through 
which it has passed has placed it below all humility. 
For, in order to humble ourselves, we must first be 
something ; what is nothing cannot abase itself below 
what it is ; [at the same time], the state it actually 
is in has placed it above all humility and all virtue 
by a transformation into God. Thus its inability comes 
both from its annihilation and its elevation.* 

5. For this reason, these souls are very ordinary 
in outward appearance, and have nothing to distin- 
guish them from others, except that they do no evil 
to any one. For, as regards the exterior, it is very 
ordinary.f It is for this reason that they are very 

in*his good, then it is appropriated to him; it then vanishes out of his 
external memory, and passes into the internal, or, what is the same, 
it vanishes in his natural or external man, and passes into the rational 
or internal man, and puts on the man himself, and makes his human, 
that is, his quality as to the human. — A. C. 3108. 

* Hence it is that the spiritual have not love to the Lord like the 
celestial ; consequently, neither have they humiliation, which is essen- 
tial in all worship, and by which good from the Lord may flow in ; 
for an elated heart never receives such good, but an humble heart. — 
A.C. 2715. 

f These are in the third heaven, and are the wisest of all. Such 
do those become in the world, who immediately apply to life the 
divine things which they hear, turning away from evils as infer- 
nal, and worshipping the Lord alone. These persons, being in 



174 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

little known; a circumstance which upholds their 
state,* and makes them live in peace, without care or 
concern about any thing whatever. f 

6. They have a boundless joy, though not sensibly 
perceived, arising from the fact that they neither fear, 
desire, nor wish for any thing. For which cause, 
nothing can either disturb their peace or lessen their 
joy. David experienced this, when he said, "All 
they who are in thee, O Lord, are like persons who 
are transported with joy," Ps. lxxxvi. 7. A per- 
son transported with joy no longer sees or feels or 
thinks about himself; and his joy, although very 
great, is not known to himself by reason of his trans- 
port. 

7. The soul, in truth, is in a state of transport 
and ecstasy, unattended by any pain, because God has 
enlarged its capacity almost without bounds. Those 
ecstasies which are attended with a loss of sensation 
produce this effect only from the weakness of those 

innocence, appear to others as infants ; and, as there is nothing ' of 
pride in their speech, they also appear simple. — D. L. W. 427. 

* " To seduce, if possible, even the elect " [Mark xiii. 22] signifies 
those who are in the life of good and truth, and thence with the Lord; 
these are they who in the Word are called the elect. They seldom 
appear in the company of those who veil profane worship under what 
is holy ; or, if they appear, they are not known, for the Lord hides, 
and thus protects them. — A. C. 3900. 

| When man is in such a [passive] state, he can also be gifted 
with peace by the Lord; for then he trusts solely in the Lord, and 
cares nothing for other things. Thus, if a man would live in peace, 
he must be in a passive state, and never in an active one, except by 
reaction and concurrent action, which also come from the Lord, so 
that the state is still a passive one. — S. D. 635. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 175 

who are the subjects of them, and yet they excite the 
admiration of the world. The weakness comes from 
this, that God drawing the soul, as it were, away from 
itself, to lose it in Himself, but the soul being neither 
pure enough nor strong enough to endure that draw- 
ing, it is necessary either that God should cease from 
drawing the soul, whereby the ecstasy comes to an 
end, or that nature should succumb and expire, as has 
happened many times. But here the ecstasy has place 
perpetually, and not for a few hours only, without 
violence or injury, God having purified and strength- 
ened the subject to the degree necessary for bearing 
this wonderful ecstasy. 

It seems to me, that ecstasy results when God goes 
forth from Himself; but I am afraid to- affirm this for 
fear of saying what is erroneous. What I will say 
then is, that the soul drawn forth from itself expe- 
riences that an ecstasy takes place with it, but a blessed 
ecstasy, because it is drawn out of itself to be abyssed 
and lost in God, leaving behind its imperfections, and 
its own narrow and limited qualities, that it may 
share in those of God himself. 

8. O blessed nothingness ! how glorious is thy ter- 
mination ! O miseries, poverties, fatigues ! how are 
ye rewarded, and more than rewarded ! O happiness 
which cannot be expressed ! What gain, O soul ! hast 
thou not made for all thy losses ! Couldst thou have 
believed, when thou wast in the mud and the dust, 
that what caused thee so much horror was destined 
to procure thee happiness so great as that which thou 



176 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

now enjoyest ?* If any one had told thee, thou couldst 
not have believed it. Learn now, by thy own experi- 
ence, how good it is to trust in God, and that they who 
put their confidence in Him shall never be confounded. 

O abandonment! what good dost thou not effect in a 
soul ! and what advances would it not make if it only 
knew how to find thee at the outset.f From how many 
sorrows would it not be delivered, if it knew how to 
yield itself up to the hand of God from the first ! 

9. But, alas ! people will not abandon themselves, 
and trust in God. Those who do this, and who 
believe that they are so well established in the princi- 
ple, are abandoned only in figure, and not in reality. 

* Despair is on this further account, that the satisfaction of life 
which is from the Lord may be made sensible; for, when they come 
out of that state, they are those who, being condemned to death, are 
liberated from prison. By desolations and temptations also, states 
contrary to heavenly life are perceived, and hence is impressed a 
sense and perception of the satisfaction and happiness of heavenly 
life; for the sense and perception of what is satisfactory and happy 
cannot come from any other source than from relation to things con- 
trary. To the intent, therefore, that full relations may be had, deso- 
lations and temptations are brought to the utmost pitch. — A. C. 
6144. 

f It is to be known that the Divine Providence is universal, that 
is, in the most singular of all things; and that they who are in the 
stream of Providence are conveyed continually to felicities, whatever 
may be the appearance of the means ; and that they are in the stream 
of Providence who put their trust in the Divine, and attribute all 
things to him ; and that they are not in the stream of Providence who 
trust to themselves alone, and attribute all things to themselves; for 
they are in the opposite, inasmuch as they refuse to allow a Provi- 
dence to the Divine, and claim it to themselves. It is to be known 
also, that, so far as any one is in the stream of Providence, so far he 
is in a state of peace. — A. C. 8478. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 177 

They wish to abandon themselves in one thing, and 
not in another. They would make terms with God, 
and put limits as to how far they will submit to His 
doings. They are willing to give themselves up, but 
only on such and such conditions. No ; this is not 
abandoning ourselves ; it is imagining that we do it, 
while we do it not. A whole and entire abandonment 
excepts nothing, reserves nothing, neither death nor 
life, nor perfection nor salvation, nor paradise nor hell. 

Cast yourselves headlong, poor souls, into this state 
of abandonment : nothing but good will come to you 
from it. Walk in assurance upon this stormy sea, 
supported by the word of Jesus Christ, "Who has pro- 
mised to take care of those who shall forsake all, and 
abandon themselves to Him. But, if you sink with 
St. Peter, be assured that it is from your little faith. 

If we only had faith to advance unhesitatingly, and 
meet all dangers without even looking at them, what 
good would not betide us ! What fearest thou, O 
craven heart ! Thou art afraid of losing thyself ! Alas ! 
considering how little thou art worth, what great mat- 
ter is that ? Yes ; thou wilt lose thyself, if thou hast 
strength enough to abandon thyself to God, but thou 
wilt lose thyself in Him. I cannot repeat often enough, 
how blessed such a loss is. Why can I not persuade 
all the world to this holy abandonment 1 And why 
do preachers preach any thing beside 1 * 

* The Lord, in order to render any one blessed and happy, wills 
a total submission, that is, that he should not be partly his own, and 
partly the Lord's; for there are then two Lords, whom man cannot 
serve at the same time, Matt. vi. 24. A total submission is also 



178 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 



10. But alas! people are so blind, that they con- 
sider this as madness, lack of prudence, something fit 
only for women or feeble minds, but quite unsuitable 
for great minds. It is something too low for them ; 
they must needs lead themselves with their own 
measure of prudence. This track is unknown to 
them, because they are wise and prudent to them- 
selves ; but it is revealed to the humble, who can sub- 
mit to be annihilated, and who are willing to be the 
foot-ball of the Divine Providence, leaving to It full 
power to exercise and treat them as It will, making 
no resistance, and giving themselves no concern about 
what the world will say. Oh, what trouble this pru- 
dence of our own has to become nothing, both in its 
own eyes, by losing all esteem of itself because of its 
own corruption, and in those of the creatures, by being 
willing to be their laughing-stock ! * 

meant by the Lord's words in Matthew : " "Whosoever loveth father 
and mother above me is not worthy of me, and whosoever loveth son 
and daughter above me is not worthy of me," x. 37. By father and 
mother are signified in general those things which are of man's pro- 
prium from what is hereditary, and by son and daughter those things 
which are of man's proprium from what is actual. — A. C. 6138. 

* The enmity which is put [Gen. iii. 15] is between the love of 
man's proprium and the Lord, thus also between man's own prudence, 
and the Divine Providence of the Lord; for one's own prudence is 
unceasing in the exaltation of its head, and the Divine Providence 
is unceasing in the depression of it. If man was sensible of this, he 
would be enraged and exasperated against God, and would perish ; 
but, whilst he is not sensible of it, he may be enraged and exasperated 
against men and against himself, and also against fortune, by which 
means he does not perish. Hence it is that the Lord by his Divine 
Providence continually leads man in freedom. — D. P. 211. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 179 

People wish, according to their own declarations, 
to keep a good standing that they may glorify God ; 
but it is only to glorify themselves. To be really 
willing to be nothing in the eyes of* God, to remain 
in a state of entire abandonment, and even in despair, 
to give ourselves to Him when we are most repulsed, 
to acquiesce and not to look at ourselves when we 
are on the brink of the abyss, — this is something 
very uncommon, and what constitutes perfect aban- 
donment. 

11. There flows down, at times, even in this life, 
into the faculties and the senses, something which is 
like a shedding forth of glory from within ; but this 
is not common. It is being as Jesus Christ was in 
His transfiguration. This is an eminent grace, and is 
attended with great purity. 



CHAPTER II. 

1 — 5. Firmness, trials, elevation, exalted peace and purity of the soul be- 
come divine and abandoned by state. 6 — 8. All is then purely God 
to it. 9 — 12. The loss of false liberty is rewarded with liberty in God. 
Wonderfulness of this state, in which all is divinely sure, equal, and 
indifferent. 

1. The soul, after having reached a divine state, is, 
as I have said, an immovable rock, not to be shaken 
by trials or blows of any kind, except when the Lord 
wills that it should do something contrary to usage 
and common wont. If, in that case, it does not yield 



180 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

at the first impulse, He inflicts on it a pain of con- 
straint which it cannot resist ; and it is compelled, by 
a force which cannot be expressed, to do what He 
wills. 

To rehearse the strange trials to which He puts 
these souls in a state of perfect abandonment, who 
resist Him in nothing, is out of the question ; neither 
would it be understood. All that can be said is, that 
He does not leave them the shadow of a thing, which 
can be said to be either in God or out of God. 

And He so lifts them above all by the loss of all, 
that nothing less than God Himself, either in heaven 
or on earth, can stop them. Nothing can captivate 
them, because there is for them no wickedness in any 
thing whatsoever, by reason of their union with God, 
who, in concurring with sinners, contracts nothing 
of their wickedness by reason of His essential 
purity. 

2. This is more real than can be expressed ; so 
that the soul participates in the purity of God, or 
rather, all its proper purity (which is only a gross 
kind of purity) having been abolished, the sole purity 
of God in Himself subsists in this nothingness ; but 
in a way so real, that the soul is in perfect ignorance 
of evil, and, as it were, unable to commit it.* This, 

* Because it is the truth, it is to be believed that the Lord governs 
heaven and earth, and that none lives but the Lord. From this faith, 
when it is given by the Lord, it follows that a man cannot commit sin ; 
for he knows that spirits who believe that they live from themselves, 
and govern themselves, excite those things in the man, which, though 
in him, are not excited by himself, because he then lives in a passive 
state, and suffers himself to be governed [by the Lord]. — S. D. 635. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 181 

however, does not hinder but that there may be a fall 
from this state ; although such a thing scarcely ever 
happens, by reason of the profound annihilation the 
soul is in, which leaves it no propriety ; and propriety 
alone can cause sin, for what no longer is cannot 
sin. 

3. So much is this the case, that the souls I am 
speaking of find great difficulty in confessing. For, 
when they go to accuse themselves, they know not 
what to accuse or condemn, not being able to find in 
themselves any thing that lives, and can have willed 
to offend God, — and this because their will is entirely 
lost in God ; and as God cannot will sin, so neither 
can they will it. If they are told to confess, they do 
it, because they are very humble ; but they speak 
with the lips what is suggested to them, like a little 
child who should be told, You must confess this, — 
who says it, not knowing what he says, or whether the 
fact is so or not, and without reproach or remorse. 
For the soul, in this state, can no longer discover any 
thing of conscience ; * all is so lost in God that there 
is no longer any accuser within it ; it remains well 
pleased, without seeking to be so. But when it is 
said to it, You have committed such a fault, it finds 
nothing in itself which has done it ; and, if it is said, 
Say that you have done it, it will say so with the 
lips, without grief or repentance. 

4. Its peace is then so unchangeable and so stead- 
fast, that nothing in the world or in all hell can affect 

* Perception is not conscience. The celestial have perception, the 
spiritual have conscience. — A. C. 597. 



182 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

it for a moment.* The senses still remain subject to 
suffering ; but when they are so overwhelmed by it 
that they cry out, if the person is questioned, or if 
he examines himself, he will find nothing in himself 
that is suffering. In the midst of inconceivable pains, 
he says, I suffer nothing ; not being able to say or to 
acknowledge that he suffers by reason of the divine 
state he is in, and the blessedness which he expe- 
riences in his centre or highest part. 

There is, here, a separation of the two parts, the 
lower and the higher, so entire and perfect, that they 
live together like strangers that do not know each 
other, f and the most extraordinary pains do not pre- 
vent the perfect peace, tranquillity, joy, and unmova- 
bleness of the higher part, as the joyful and divine 
state of the higher does not hinder extreme suffering 
in the lower, — and this without mixture or confusion 
in any way. 

5. If you would attribute any thing to a soul which 
is thus transformed and become God, it will refuse it 
at once, not being able to find in itself any thing 
which can be named, affirmed, or understood : it is 
in a perfect negation. From this arises the difference 

* He who is gifted with a heavenly proprium is also in tranquillity 
and peace ; for he trusts in the Lord, and believes that nothing of evil 
befalls him, and knows that concupiscences do not infest him. — A. C. 
5660. 

f Spiritual things with them [those of the most ancient church] 
were altogether distinct from natural things, the former residing in 
their spiritual mind, and the latter in their natural mind ; and hence 
they did not immerse any thing spiritual in their natural mind, as is 
the case with men who are spiritual natural. — A. E. 617. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 183 

of the terms [applied to this state], and the use of 
expressions which it is difficult to explain, except to 
those who are in a similar condition. 

This arises also from the fact, that, as the soul has 
lost by its annihilation all that was proper to itself, 
and God subsists within it, it can attribute nothing to 
itself, any more than it can to God, because it no longer 
knows any thing but Him alone, of Whom it can say 
nothing. 

6. Thus all is God to this soul ; for here the 
question is no longer about seeing all things in God ; 
for to see things is to distinguish them in Him. For 
example : I see, in a chamber, what there is different 
from the chamber itself, though included in it ; but if 
every thing were transformed into this chamber, or 
if every thing were taken from the chamber, I should 
see nothing but the chamber itself. 

All creatures, celestial, terrestrial, or pure intelli- 
gences, — every thing disappears and vanishes, and 
there remains nothing but God Himself as He was 
before creation. The soul sees God only every- 
where ; * and all is God to it, not in the way of 
thought, view, light, f but by identity of state and 

* In such a state were the most ancient people, who were celestial 
men; for whatever they apprehended by any sense was to them a 
medium of thinking concerning the things of the Lord, thus concern- 
ing the Lord and His kingdom, and hence was the delight which they 
derived from things worldly and terrestrial. — A. C. 3702. 

| When man is in this state, he then begins to know innumerable 
things, &c. Thence the light of truth from good increases immensely, 
and becomes as a continuous lucidity ; for he is then in the light of 
heaven, which is from the Lord. — A. C. 3833. 



184 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 



consummation of unity ; and as this unity makes it 
God by participation,* so that it is no longer able to 
see itself, it also cannot see any thing [but God] any- 
where. Hence such a soul would be as indifferent at 
being for a whole eternity with devils as with angels. 
Devils are to it as every thing else, and it is no longer 
possible for it to see a created being out of the 
uncreated ; for the uncreated essence alone is all and 
in all, — all God ; as well in a devil as in a saint, 
although in a different manner. f 

7. But this is so real that it is impossible for the 
soul to be otherwise. Accordingly, if all creatures 
should join to condemn it, their censure would be a 
thing of less account to it than a buzzing fly. This 
would not be from obstinacy and firmness of will, as 
people think, but from the impossibility of any longer 
being concerned about itself, because it no longer sees 

* All who are led by the Divine Providence of the Lord are 
elevated from proprium, and then see that every good and truth is 
from the Lord ; yea, they also see, that that which is from the Lord 
in man is perpetually the Lord's, and never man's. — D. P. 316. 

f In regard to the life of every one, whether man or spirit or 
angel, it flows in solely from the Lord, who is life itself, and diffuses 
Himself through the universal heaven, also through hell, thus into 
every individual therein, and this in an incomprehensible order and 
series ; but the life which flows in is received by every one according 
to his character : good and truth is received as good and truth by the 
good; whereas good and truth is received as evil and false by the 
wicked, and is even changed into evil and the false in them. This 
is comparatively as the light of the sun, which diffuses itself into all 
objects of earth, but is received according to the quality of each 
object, and becomes of a beautiful color in beautiful forms, and of an 
ugly color in ugly forms. This is an arcanum in the world, but in 
another life nothing is better known. — A. C. 2888. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 185 

itself. You shall ask of this soul, What, I pray, dis- 
poses you to do this thing and that ? Was it that God 
directed you, and gave you to know or understand 
His will ? — I know nothing ; I understand nothing ; 
neither do I think about my knowing nothing ; * all is 
God and God's will to me, and I no longer know 
what God's will is, because that will has become, as 
it were, natural to me. — But why do you do this 
rather than that ? — I know not : I give myself up to 
that which carries me along. — Well, why 1 — It car- 
ries me along, because, my proper self having no longer 
any being, I am carried along with God, and God 
alone causes this movement. He goes that way ; He 
acts, and I am but an instrument which I do not see 
or look at. I no longer- have any interest separate 
from Him, because, by losing myself, I have lost all 
interest of my own ; accordingly, I am not capable of 
understanding any reason, nor of giving any for my 
conduct, for I no longer have any conduct.* I act, 
however, infallibly, so long as I have no other prin- 
ciple than the infallible principle. 

This blind abandonment is a thing of state to the 
soul I am speaking of ; because, having become one 
and the same with God, it can see God only ; for, 
having lost all dissimilarity, propriety, distinction, 

* For they [angels in love to the Lord] see in themselves whether 
the things which they hear are true or not, and they see this not 
from any sight in the thought, like others, but from the affection of 
truth in their understanding ; for all truths with them are inscribed 
on their affections, which derive their essence from celestial love, 
which is love to the Lord. Thus truths with them make one with their 
affections. — A. E. 826. 
13 



186 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

there is no longer room for abandonment, because to 
abandon one's self one must needs be something, and 
have the power of disposing of one's self.* 

8. The soul I am speaking of is, by this state, lost 
in God with Jesus Christ, as St. Paul says, — mingled 
with Him, as the river I have spoken of is blended in 
the sea, so that it finds itself no longer. It has the 
ebb and flow of the sea, no longer by choice and will 
and liberty, but by state, because, the boundless sea 
having absorbed its scanty and limited waters, it 
shares in all that is done by the sea, but without 
being distinguished from the sea itself. It is the sea 
that carries it along, and yet it is not carried along, 
because it has lost all that is proper to it ; and having 
no other movement than the sea, it acts as the sea 
itself; not that by its nature it has these qualities, 
but because, in losing all its proper qualities, it no 
longer has any others than those of the sea, and can 
never be any thing but the sea. 

This does not mean, as I have said, that the soul 
does not so retain its nature, that, if God willed, He 
could not draw it forth in a moment from the sea, 
though this is what He will not do. It does not lose its 
nature as a creature, and God might cast it forth from 
His divine bosom, but He does not do so. This crea- 
ture, as we have said, acts then, in a manner, divinely. 

9. But some one will say to me, — In this way you 
take away from man his liberty. Not so ; he is now 

* For man in genuine humiliation divests himself of all ability to 
think and do any thing from himself, and leaves himself altogether 
to the Divine, and thus accedes to the Divine. — A. C. 6866. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 187 

without liberty by an excess of liberty, because he 
has freely lost all created liberty. He shares in 
the uncreated liberty, which is no longer narrowed, 
limited, or confined, as regards any thing whatever.* 
The soul is so free and so large, that the whole earth 
appears to it only as a point, without its being con- 
fined within it. It is free to do all things, and to do 
nothing. There is no state or condition to which it 
does not adapt itself; it can do all, and can do 
nothing that other men do. 

10. Oh, wonderful state ! who can describe thee, f 
and what is it thou canst fear and apprehend 1 Loss, 
death, damnation ? — Thou hast said, O holy Paul ! 
" Who shall ever be able to separate us from the love 
of Jesus Christ ? " " We are confident/' says this 
great saint, " that neither death, nor life, nor princi- 
palities, nor powers, &c, shall be able to separate us 
therefrom," Rom. viii. 35, 38. Now, this expression, 
" we are confident," excludes all doubt. Well, great 
saint, where was thy confidence ? — It was in the 
infallibility of God Himself. J — Frequently as the let- 

* Freedom derived from the proprium is to indulge in all kinds of 
pleasures, to despise others in comparison with one's self, to subject 
them to himself as servants. But when he loses this freedom, he 
then receives from the Lord heavenly freedom, which is a thing 
altogether unknown to those who are in freedom derived from the 
proprium. — A. C. 5786. 

| The perceptions of the celestial man can never be described ; for 
they extend to the most minute and particular things, with all 
variety, according to states and circumstances. — A. C. 521. 

X It is an eternal truth that the Lord governs heaven and earth; 
also, that no one lives from himself, except the Lord; consequently, 
that the all of life flows in, good of life from the Lord, and evil of 



188 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

ters of this great apostle, this mystical doctor, are 
read by the world, it yet does not understand them, 
although the whole mystic way, its beginning, its 
progress, and its end, are described therein, and even 
the divine life itself — the world does not understand 
these things in them, but a person to whom the under- 
standing of them has been imparted sees them there 
plainer than the day. 

11. Oh ! if the men who find it so hard to give 
themselves up to God, could but experience this, they 
would acknowledge, that, although the way which led 
to it was extremely hard, one single day of this state 
well rewards so many years of suffering. — But by 
what route does God lead men thither 1 — By ways 
quite the opposite to those we imagine for ourselves. 
He builds by casting down ; He gives life by taking it 
away. 

Oh, if I could only tell what He does, and the won- 
derful methods He makes use of to reach this point ! 
But I must be silent, — man cannot receive it, — those 
who are in this state can understand me.* Here 

life from hell. This is the faith of the heavens : when man is in this 
faith, in which he may be when in good, then evil cannot be affixed 
and appropriated to him, because he knows that it is not from him- 
self, but from hell. When man is in this state, he can then be gifted 
with power; for then he will trust solely in the Lord. — A. C. 6325. 

* But these things, although they are clear to those who are in 
the light of heaven, are still obscure to those who are in the light of 
the world; thus to most persons at this day, and perhaps so obscure 
as to be scarcely intelligible. Nevertheless, inasmuch as these things 
are treated of in the internal sense, and are of such a nature, the 
opening of them is not to be dispensed with : a time is about to come 
when there will be illustration. — A. C. 4402. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 189 

there is no more need of place or of time ;* every 
thing is alike ; all places are good, so that if the order 
of God should lead them into Turkey, such persons 
would find themselves as much at ease there as else- 
where, all means being now useless, since the soul 
has infinitely surpassed them. Being eminently in 
the end, there is nothing more to be looked for.f 

12. Here all is God; God is everywhere, and in 
all ; and thus the soul is equal in all. Its prayer is 
God Himself ; J always equal, never interrupted, — 
although the soul does not perceive it otherwise than 
by a state of consistence ;§ and if, at times, God 
diffuses some overflowing of His glory over its facul- 

* When man is in a state of love or of heavenly affection, he is 
then in an angelic state, namely, as it were, not in time, if there be 
no impatience in the affection ; for impatience is a corporeal affection, 
and so far as man is in it, so far he is in time ; but so far as a man is 
not in it, so far he is not in time. This is manifest in a sort of image 
from all the joy and gladness which are of affection, in that, when 
man is in them, time does not appear to him ; for he is then in the 
internal man. The affection of genuine love withdraws man from 
corporeal and worldly objects ; for it elevates his mind towards heaven, 
and thus withdraws it from the things of time. — A. C. 3827. 

•j- He who has arrived at spiritual good has no more need of doctri- 
nals, which are from others, for he is in the end whither he was 
tending, and no longer in the means; and doctrinals are nothing else 
but the means of arriving at good as the end. — A. C. 5997. 

X For the Lord's Divine Human is all worship and all doctrine, 
insomuch that it is worship itself, and doctrine itself. — A. C. 2811. 

§ But as to what concerns divine worship from celestial good, such 
as is with those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom, it is not 
effected by confessions, adorations, and prayers, of the same quality 
with those who are in the spiritual kingdom; thus not by truths from 
the memory, but by truths from the heart, which act as one with the 
love itself in which they are. — A. C. 10,295. 



190 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

ties and senses, it works no change in this inmost 
state, which ever continues the same. Mary, who 
possessed this state in a degree more perfect than any 
creature can have it, was indifferent about remaining 
or not remaining on earth after the ascension of her 
Son. And she would have remained thus throughout 
eternity, if such had been the good pleasure of God. 
Such a soul is not concerned about solitude, or inter- 
course with the world ; all is alike to it. It is no 
longer desirous of being delivered from the body, in 
order to be united to God without a medium. In this 
state it is not only united, but transformed ; changed 
into the object of its love, which causes that it no 
longer thinks about loving. For it loves God, Who 
is love from Himself, and by state, although this 
state is not such that it is impossible to be lost. 



CHAPTER III. 

1, 2. Perfect union, or Deiformity, explained by a comparison. 3 — 5. These 
souls, apparently ordinary and despised, are of great value, as also their 
actions ; but they are few in number, and of different degrees. 6, 7. The 
secrets of God are manifested to these hidden souls, and by them to others. 
8, 9. Permanence and growth of this state, although unequally. 10, 11. 
All proper capacity is to be lost ; the capacity, participated from God by 
transformation, grows boundlessly. 

1. There occurs to me a comparison which seems 
to me well suited to the subject, taken from grain. 
The good is first separated from the bad, — whereby 
is indicated conversion and separation from sin. After 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 191 

the grain is thus separate and pure, it must be ground 
by affliction, crosses, diseases, &c. When it is thus 
ground and reduced to flour, it is still necessary to 
remove from it, not impurities, for they exist no 
longer ; but all that is coarse, which is the bran. 
When there remains nothing but the finest flour, 
purified from every thing foreign, we make bread of 
it by kneading. It seems as if, in this operation, we 
were defiling the flour, making it dark and dingy, and 
taking from it its delicacy and whiteness ; and this, 
only to make of it a pastry which is by no means as 
beautiful in appearance as the flour was. Subsequent- 
ly, this pastry is put to the fire. It must fare even so 
with such souls. But, after the bread is baked, it is 
destined for the king's mouth, who not only unites it 
to himself by kneading it, but eats, digests, consumes, 
and annihilates it, and so changes it into himself, and 
causes it to pass into his own substance. 

You will observe, that it is not enough that the 
bread is handled and eaten even by the king, though 
this is the very highest privilege it could enjoy, and 
the end for which it is destined. It cannot be 
changed into his substance, unless it is annihilated by 
digestion, and thereby loses all its own proper form 
and quality. 

2. This comparison serves well to express all the 
states of the soul, — that of union and the great differ- 
ence .between it and transformation, in which, the soul, 
in order to become one with God and be transformed 
and changed into Him, must, of necessity, be not only 
eaten, but digested, that thus, after losing all that is 



192 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

properly its own, it may become one and the same 
thing with God ! 

This state is very little known ; * for which reason, 
it is not much spoken of.f O state of life ! how 
strait is the way that leads to thee ! O love, purest of 
all," since thou art God Himself! O love, boundless 
and independent, incapable of being limited by any 
thing whatsoever ! 

3. Notwithstanding, these souls appear as if they 
were very ordinary, as I have said, because they have 
nothing in the exterior to distinguish them, except a 
boundless liberty, which often scandalizes souls limited 
and confined within themselves ; to whom, inasmuch 
as they see nothing better than what they have, all 
which they possess not themselves seems to be bad. 
But the liberty they condemn in these souls, so sim- 
ple and so innocent, is a holiness incomparably more 
eminent than all that they believe holy. It is thus 
we are to understand the passage which says, " that 
the iniquity of a man is of more worth than a woman 
who does well," Ecclus. xlii. 14 ; because the appa- 
rent faults of these persons, who alone can deserve to 

* The arcanum which here [Gen. xxix. 7] lies hid is, that there 
are few who ever arrive at a full state (concerning which state see 
n. 2636), and thus who can be regenerated. — A. C. 3787. 

f But as these subjects are of such a nature, that they transcend 
the apprehension of the natural man, and cannot be seen except in the 
light in which the rational or internal man is, in which light few at 
this day are, because few are regenerated, therefore it is better to 
illustrate them no further, inasmuch as the illustration, unknown and 
transcending the apprehension, is not to bring them into light, but 
more into the shade. — A. C. 3596. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 193 

be considered as men, are of more worth than the 
good deeds of others, effeminate in comparison with 
them, who do good so feebly, though in appearance 
so fervently ; because the works of the latter have no 
more power than the principle from which they spring, 
which is nothing but the endeavor of a weak creature 
— although an endeavor exalted and ennobled [by 
grace]. But souls perfected in the Divine Unity act 
in God, from a principle of boundless power ; and so 
their small actions are more acceptable to God than 
the many heroic actions of others, which appear so 
great before men. 

4. This is the reason why souls of this degree are 
not concerned, and do not seek to do any great things, 
being satisfied to be as they are each moment. What 
wert thou doing, O Mary, on earth, after the ascension 
of thy Son ? Wert thou pressed with anxiety to con- 
vert many souls — to do great things 1 — Such a soul 
does more, without doing any thing, towards convert- 
ing a kingdom, than fi.Ye hundred preachers who are 
not in this state. Mary did more for the church 
while she did nothing, than all the apostles together. 
I do not mean that God does not often permit these 
souls to be known : this is by no means so, since very 
many persons are directed to them, to whom they 
communicate a vivifying principle, thereby winning 
many others to Jesus Christ. But this is done with- 
care or anxiety, by mere Providence. 

Oh ! if men knew the glory which these persons, 
often the offscouring of the world, render to God, 
they would be astonished and delighted. For it is 



194 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

properly they who render to God a glory worthy of 
God, without thinking about doing so, because, God 
acting in them in God, He derives from Himself in 
them a glory worthy of Himself.* 

5. Oh, how many souls, quite seraphic in appear- 
ance, are far distant from this state ! Still, there are 
in this state, as in all the others, souls more or less 
divine. The divine Mary was privileged above all ; 
next to her, many progress in this state more or less, 
according to the design of God. Those who reach it 
in the present life, reach it, usually, only a little before 
death, except it be that God, wishing to make use of 
them and to do wonders by them, should, for some 
special end, advance them in this way. Such cases, 
however, are exceedingly rare.f 

6. For God hides them in His bosom and under the 
exterior of the most ordinary life, that they may be 
known to Himself alone, although they are His favored 
ones. Here the secrets of Gcd in Himself, and of 
Himself in these pure creatures, are manifested, not 
in the way of speech, view, light, but by the know- 

* The Divine cannot look at any thing else than the Divine, and 
cannot look at that elsewhere than in things created from itself. Hence 
it is that the Lord is so conjoined to man, spirit, and angel, that every 
thing which has relation to the Divine is not from them, but from the 
Lord. In a word, the Lord cannot have an abode, and dwell with 
man and angel, except in His own, and not in their proprium; for 
this is evil.— D. P. 53. 

f They who are regenerating do not all arrive at this [the celes- 
tial] state, but some, and the greatest part at this day only to 
the first; some only to the second; some to the third, fourth, and 
fifth; few to the sixth; and scarcely any one to the seventh. — 
A.C. 13. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 195 

ledge of God dwelling in them.^' And when such 
a soul is to write or speak, it is itself astonished 
that all flows from this divine depth, without its ever 
having thought that it possessed such things, f It 
finds in itself, as it were, a deep [well] of knowledge, 
without memory or recollection, like an invaluable 
treasure which one does not observe until he is under 
the necessity of manifesting it, when the manifesta- 
tion of it to others is the manifestation of it to the 
soul itself. X 

When such a soul writes, it is astonished to find 
that it writes of things it does not know, and did not 
believe itself to be acquainted with, though it cannot 
doubt that it really possesses them in writing them.§ 

* They who are in good from truth look through truths upward to 
the Lord ; but they who are in good, and thence in truth, are in the 
Lord, and from Him look at truths. — A. C. 8771. 

f That in the good of love, which flows in from the Lord through 
the angels, there is all truth, which truth would manifest itself from 
itself, if man lived in love to the Lord, and love towards the neighbor, 
is manifest not only from those things which exist in heaven, but also 
from those which exist in inferior nature. — A. C. 6323. 

f In the interior man is the good which continually flows in from 
the Lord, and there conjoins itself with truths, and makes them to be 
faith, and next to be charity. When, therefore, these truths are con- 
joined to good, then man is regenerated; for then he no longer 
looks from truths at what is to be believed and what is to be done, 
but from good, because he is imbued with truths; and has them in 
himself. — A. C. 8772. 

§ Ey Adam and his wife is understood the most ancient church, 
which was a celestial church. The men of that church, being prin- 
cipled in love to the Lord, had divine truths inscribed upon them, and 
thence knew from influx the things corresponding in the natural man, 
which are called scientifics ; in a word, with the men of that church 
spiritual influx had place, which is from the spiritual mind into the 



196 SPIRITUAL TOEJEtENTS. 

This is not the case with others : their lights precede 
their experience. They are like persons who see at a 
distance things they do not possess, and who describe 
things they have seen, known, understood, &c.-* But 
the soul we are speaking of is like one who contains 
a treasure within himself; it does not see it until 
after its manifestation, although it has all along pos- 
sessed it. 

7. This does not, however, still express well my 
meaning. God is in this soul, or rather the soul no 
longer is, — it acts no longer ; but God acts, and it is 
the instrument.! God comprehends in Himself all 
treasures, and causes them to be manifested by this 
soul to others ; and then, in drawing them from its 
inmosts, it knows that they were there, although, by 
being lost to itself, it could never have reflected upon 
them. I am sure that any soul in this degree will 
understand me, and know very well the difference 

natural, and thus into the things which are therein, which things they 
saw according to their quality, as in a mirror, from correspondence. — 
A.C. 617. 

* That they who are of the Lord's spiritual church are interiorly 
natural, is because they only acknowledge that for truth which they 
have imbibed from parents and masters, and afterwards have them- 
selves confirmed with themselves, and do not see inwardly and per- 
ceive whether truth be from any other source than from this, that 
they have confirmed it with themselves. It is otherwise with the 
celestial: hence it is that the latter are rational, but the former 
interiorly natural. — A. C. 6240. 

| It is known in the learned world that the principal cause and 
the instrumental act together as one cause ; man, inasmuch as he is a 
form recipient of the Lord's life, is an instrumental cause, but life 
from the Lord is the principal cause ; this latter life is felt in the 
instrumental as its life, when yet it is not its. — A. C. 6325. 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 1 97 

between this and other states. The first sees these 
things and enjoys them as we enjoy the sun; the 
second has become the sun himself, which does not 
enjoy nor think upon his own light. * 

8. This state is very permanent, and there is no 
change as to the inmost of it, except an increased pro- 
gress in God. And, as God is infinite, He can divinize 
a soul ever more and more, and that by enlarging its 
capacity. Mary, as I have said elsewhere, was 
entirely filled with grace at her first conception. And 
this is well discovered to the soul. She was in the 
fulness of God when she conceived the "Word, and 
yet she grew almost boundlessly until her death. — 
How, if she was full, as the angel assures us, could 
she be filled yet more 1 — It was because God enlarged 
her capacity every day, losing her and expanding her 
in Himself, as the water we have spoken of spreads 
itself ever wide and wider in proportion as it is lost 
in the sea, in which it is perpetually abyssing itself, 
without ever going forth from it. 

9. God deals in like manner with these souls. All 
who are in this degree have God, but some more, 
others less. They are all in a state of fulness, but 
they are not all in an equal amount of fulness. A 
small vessel, when full, is as much filled as a large 
one ; but it does not contain as much. The case is 

* For the men of the celestial church are such, that they perceive 
all the truths and goods of heaven from the Lord by influx into their 
interiors; whence they see goods and truths inwardly in themselves, 
as implanted, and have no need to learn them by a posterior way, or 
to treasure them up in their memory. — A. E. 739. 



198 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

the same with these souls : they all have the fulness of 
God, but according to the capacity of receiving, and 
thus there are those to whom God enlarges this capa- 
city daily. For this reason, the more souls live in 
this divine state the more they are ennobled, their 
capacity becoming continually more immense, without 
there being any thing for them either to desire or to 
do. For they always have God in fulness, God never 
allowing a moment's void in them; for, in proportion 
as He increases and enlarges, in the same proportion 
He fills with Himself. It is the same as with the air ; 
a small apartment is full of air, but a large one con- 
tains more air; enlarge this apartment more and 
more, and just in that degree, infallibly though imper- 
ceptibly, the air will always be getting admission. 
In the same manner, without change of state or of 
disposition, and without feeling any thing new, the 
soul increases in fulness and largeness. But the capa- 
city of the soul can never be increased in this manner, 
except by annihilation, because, up to this time, the 
soul has a repugnance to being enlarged. 

10. It is well to explain here a point of some 
importance, which is, that there is an apparent con- 
tradiction in my saying that the soul must be annihi- 
lated in order to pass into God, and lose what is 
proper to it, while yet I speak of a certain capacity 
which it retains. 

There are two capacities. The one is proper to the 
creature, and this capacity is small and limited : when 
purified, it is adapted to receive the gifts of God, but 
not God Himself; because what we receive in ourselves 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 199 

is less than ourselves, as what is confined in a vessel 
is less extended, although more precious, than the 
vessel which receives it. 

But the capacity I am now speaking of is a capacity 
of being extended, and of becoming lost continually 
more and more in God. This has place after the soul 
has lost that propriety which fixed it in itself, and 
when, being no longer held back or straitened in 
itself (because its annihilation,* by taking from it all 
particular form, has disposed it to flow into God, so 
that it loses itself, and flows abroad in Him who can- 
not be comprehended), the more it abysses itself in 
Him, the more it extends itself and becomes boundless, 
sharing in His perfections.! 

11. It is a capacity of ever growing and extending 

* Regeneration is nothing else than for the natural to be subju- 
gated, and the spiritual to obtain the dominion; and the natural is 
then subjugated when it is reduced to correspondence ; and, when the 
natural is reduced to correspondence, it then no longer reacts, but 
acts as it is commanded, and obeys the dictates of the spiritual in 
nearly the same manner as the acts of the body obey the dictates of 
the will, and as the speech with the countenance is according to the 
influx of the thought. Hence it is evident that the natural ought 
altogether to become as nothing in respect to willing, in order that 
man may become spiritual. — A. C. 5651. 

•f When it [the old natural] has become as nothing, then man is 
gifted with a new natural, which is called the spiritual natural : it 
is called spiritual from this, because the spiritual is what acts by 
or through it, and manifests itself by it as the cause by the effect. 
When this is the case, man then receives good from the. Lord; and, 
when he receives good, he is gifted with truths ; and, when he is gifted 
with truths, he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom ; and, when he 
is perfected in intelligence and wisdom, he is blessed with happiness 
to eternity.— A. C. 5651. 



200 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

more and more in God, being able to be transformed 
into Him in an ever-increasing degree, just as water, 
joined to its source, blends with it ever more and 
more. 

God being our original, He has created us with a 
nature such that it can be united and transformed so 
as to make one with Himself. 



CHAPTER IV. 

1, 2. The first impulses of these souls are all divine. They have no more 
reflections, and why. 3 — 5. Their sufferings are without reflection, but 
by impression. 6—8. The greatness of these sufferings, which, however, 
do not impair their repose or contentment, by reason of their deification, 
which grows boundlessly but gradually. 9 — 12. Neither goods nor evils 
can any longer impair their peace, just as God is neither troubled nor 
changed by His sight of men's sins, because all redounds to His glory. 

1. The soul, then, has nothing to do here but to 
remain as it is, and to follow, without resistance, all 
the impulses of its mover. All its first impulses in 
this state are from God,*' and constitute His infallible 
leading.f This is not the case in the lower states, 

* For the truths with them [those of the Lord's celestial kingdom] 
are inscribed on their love : wherefore, when they do from love what is 
prescribed, they do it at the same time from truths, without any 
thought concerning them from what is doctrinal, thus without calling 
them forth from the memory. — A. C. 10,295. 

f With respect to perception of good and truth in things celestial 
and spiritual, the interior angels have this from the Lord, and the 
men of the most ancient church had it, and the celestial have it who 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 201 

except after the soul has begun to taste and delight in 
its centre : but even then it is not so infallible ; and 
any one who should observe this rule, without being 
in this highly advanced state, would be likely to go 
astray. 

2. This, then, is the way in which such a soul is 
led, viz., by following, blindly and without leading, 
the impulses which are from God, without reflection. 
Here all reflection is banished, and the soul would 
find difficulty in resorting to it, even if it desired to 
do so. But since it might perhaps, by making the ef- 
fort, succeed in this, reflections must be shunned above 
every thing else ; because reflection is the only thing 
capable of leading man back into himself, and taking 
him out of God. Now I say, that, if man does not go 
forth from God, he will never sin ; and that, if he does 
sin, it is because he has gone forth from Him, which 
can only be done by propriety. The soul cannot 
return into itself except by reflection, which would be 
a hell like that which befell the first angel, who, in 
looking at himself with complacency, instead of con- 
sidering what he owed to God, loved himself, and 
became a devil.* And this state would be so much 
the more horrible, as the other should be more 
advanced. 

are in love to the Lord: they know instantly, by a certain internal 
animadvertence, whether a thing be good and whether it be true; for 
the Lord insinuates this, inasmuch as they are conjoined to the Lord 
by love. — A. C. 2831. 

* With respect to the state of a man of the church, the case is this: 
during the progress of regeneration, he learns truth for the sake of 

14 



202 SPIRITUAL TOBEENT8. 

3. It will be objected, that, according to this, there 
can be no suffering in this state — (there is none as to 
the interior, but there may be as to the senses, as I 
have said) — because, it will be said, there must be 
reflection in order to suffering, and it is reflection 
which constitutes the principal and most painful part 
of suffering. All this is true in a certain sense ; and, 
as it is the fact that souls far inferior to these suffer, 
at one time in the way of reflection, and at another in 
the way of impression, it is to be understood that 
those of this degree cannot suffer otherwise than by 
impression. This does not hinder that the pain 
undergone is without limits, and much more severe 
than that which results from reflection; just as one 
burnt by having the fire impressed upon him would 
feel it more sensibly than one who should be burnt 
by reflection from the fire.* 

good, for he has the affection of truth to this intent; but, after he is 
regenerated, he then acts from truth and good. When he is arrived 
at this state, he ought not to betake himself to his former state; for, if 
he should do this, he would reason (ratiocinate) from truth concerning 
the good in which he is, and would thereby pervert his state; for all 
reasoning (ratiocination) ceases, and ought to cease, when man is in 
a state to will what is true and good; for then he thinks and acts 
from the will, consequently from conscience, and not from the under- 
standing as before; and, if he should from this again, he would fall 
into temptations and sink therein. — A. C. 3652. 

* There are several kinds of temptations, which in general may 
be divided into the celestial, spiritual, and natural ; and these ought 
never to be confounded with each other. Celestial temptations can 
have no place except with those who are principled in love towards 
the Lord; and spiritual temptations with those only who are in charity 
towards their neighbor. — A. C. 847. 



SPIRITUAL TORKENTS. 203 

4. But it is asked, — Will not God direct their 
thoughts by the way of reflection so as to make them 
suffer more ? — God will not do this in the way of 
reflection. He may show them in a moment what 
they must suffer ; but it will be by a direct sight, not 
accompanied with self-reflection, — just as beatified 
spirits see in God what is in Himself, and what 
takes place out of Him in the creatures and in them- 
selves, without exercising self-regard or self-reflection, 
but continuing firmly attached, abyssed, and lost in 
God.* 

5. This is a point as to which many spiritual per- 
sons are deceived, since they believe that nothing can 
be known or suffered except by reflection. On the 
contrary, the knowledges and sufferings of this kind 
are very light in comparison with the others. 

6. All suffering that is distinguished and knows 
itself, although commonly expressed in such high 
terms, does not equal that of these souls, who do not 
know their sufferings, and who cannot assert that 
they suffer, because of the great separation of the 
two parts. It is both true that they suffer extreme 
anguish, and that they suffer nothing, and are in a 
state of perfect contentment. I believe that if such 
a soul were led into hell, it would endure its cruel 



* For God is everywhere, and yet not in space ; wherefore, He is 
as well within as without an angel, and hence an angel can see Grod; 
that is, the Lord, both within and without himself, — within, when he 
thinks from love and wisdom; without, when he thinks of love and 
wisdom. — D.L.W. 130. 



204 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

pains in this manner, in complete contentment ; not 
contentment caused by a sight of the good pleasure 
of God, but an essential contentment by reason of the 
blessedness of its transformed interior. It is this 
which makes these souls indifferent as regards all 
states. This does not prevent, as I have said, extreme 
suffering, as extreme suffering does not prevent per- 
fect happiness. Those who have experienced this, 
can well understand it. 

7. It is not here as in the passive state of love, in 
which the soul is so rilled with sweetness, or with 
love for suffering and for the good pleasure of God. 
This is not at all the case. This state comes about 
by a loss of all things in God ; by a state of deifica- 
tion, in which all is God, without the soul's seeing 
that it is so. The soul is established by state in its 
sovereign good, without change. It is in a deep- 
seated beatitude, where nothing can cross its perfect 
happiness, when that happiness is from a permanent 
state; for many enjoy it transitorily, previous to 
having it by permanent state. God gives, in the 
first place, the light of this state, and next, the delight 
of it ; at length, He gives it in the way of confused 
perception, not distinct ; next, He gives the state 
itself, in a permanent manner, and establishes the soul 
in it for ever. 

8. I shall be told that, the soul being established in 
this state, there is nothing further for it to do. The 
fact is just the other way ; there is always a bound- 
less work to be done on the side of God, though not 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 205 

on that of the creature. God does not divinize the 
soul all at once, but by little and little ; and then, as 
has been said, He increases the capacity of the soul, 
which He can always deify more and more, since He is 
an unfathomable abyss. 

" O God ! how great is Thy goodness which Thou 
hast laid up for those who fear (Ps. xxxi. 19) and 
who love Thee I" It was the sight of this state which 
made David cry out so often after he was purified 
from his sin. 

9. These souls can no longer be astonished, either 
at any grace that is related to them, or at any sin that 
may be committed, since they know thoroughly both 
the goodness of God which causes the one, and the 
wickedness of man which is the source of the other. 
The whole world might perish without their being 
troubled by it, if God did not impress this concern 
upon them. Are they, then, no longer jealous for the 
honor of God, since they no longer afflict themselves 
at the sins which are committed by the world ? No ; 
by no means. They are jealous for the glory of God 
as God Himself is. 

God is, of necessity, obliged to love His own 
glory more than any other can ; and all that He does 
in Himself, and out of Himself in others, He does in 
reference to Himself. Nevertheless, He cannot be 
displeased at the sins of the whole world,*' nor at the 

* The Lord is as far from cursing and being angry with any one 
as heaven is from earth. Who can believe that the Lord, who is 
omniscient and omnipotent, and rules the universe in wisdom, and is 



206 SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 

ruin of all men, although, in order that He might 
save them all, He was incarnate, and took a suffering 
and mortal body, and laid down His life. These 
souls also would give a thousand lives to save them, 
because God, Who has transformed them, has made 
them share in His own qualities,* and they see it all 
as God does. And although God does truly desire 
the salvation of all men, and gives to them all the 
grace necessary for their salvation, — although, by 
their own fault, that grace is not always effectual, — 
He yet does not fail to derive glory from their ruin. 
For it is impossible that God should permit any thing 
whatever in which He is not necessarily glorified, 
either in the way of justice or of mercy. This, 
indeed, is not the intention of him who transgresses 
against God ; for he does Him thereby an active dis- 
honor ; but still on God's side there is no passive 
dishonor, and it must needs be that the transgressor's 
own sin should, against his own will, redound to the 
glory of God.f 

thus infinitely above all infirmities, is angry with such miserable 
dust, — that is, with men, who scarce know any thing that they do, 
and can do nothing of themselves but what is evil! Wherefore 
with the Lord there is never to be angry, but to be merciful.— 
A. C. 1093. 

* The nature and quality of the Lord's love transcends all 
human understanding, and is more especially incredible to those who 
do not know what the celestial love is, in which the angels are. Those 
angels, for the sake of saving a soul from hell, make no account of 
death ; yea, if it was in their power, they would endure hell for such 
a soul.— A. C. 2077. 

t For such is the state and such is the equilibrium of all things in 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 207 

11. Although God, from His nature, cannot be 
offended, he who offends Him deserves boundless 
punishment, by reason of the wicked will which he 
has to offend and dishonor this infinite Goodness. If 
he does not effect this as regards God, he yet always 
does it as far as his own action and will are con- 
cerned ; and this will is so malignant, that, if it could 
take from God His divinity, it would do so.* It is, 
therefore, this malignant will on the part of the sub- 
ject which makes the guilt, and not the action ; for if 
a person whose will is lost, abyssed, and transformed 
in God, were reduced by absolute necessity to commit 
deeds of sin, — as certain tyrants compelled the virgin 
martyrs to do, — they would do them without sin. 
This is plain. 

12. But to return : I say that these souls can have 
no concern about sin, because, although they hate it 
without bounds, they are no longer painfully affected 

another life, that evil returns upon him who does it, and becomes the 
evil of punishment, and that it is inevitable. This is called its per- 
mission for the sake of the amendment of evil: still, however, the 
Lord turns all the evil of punishment into good, so that nothing but 
good is from the Lord. — A. C. 592. 

* These two loves [the love of self, and the love of the world] 
increase, so far as the reins are given them, and so far as man is 
advanced into them ; and at length they increase beyond measure, so 
that they not only desire to govern all in their own kingdom, but also 
beyond its borders, even to the ends of the earth : yea, those loves, 
when they are unrestrained, ascend even to the God of the universe; 
that is, to such a height that they who are in them wish to climb 
into the throne of God, and to be worshipped instead of God Him- 
self.— A. C. 7375. 



208 



SPIRITUAL TORRENTS, 



by the sight of it since they see it as God sees it. 
And although, were it needful for them to give their 
own life to prevent the commission of a single sin, 
they would do it, if God so willed, yet this is without 
action, without desires, without inclination, without 
choice, without eagerness on their side, — all in a per- 
fect state of death, in which they no longer see things 
save as God sees them, and no longer judge of them 
save as He judges. 



THE END. 



\iM 



